Abecedarian
by Raine Leonhart
Summary: Of mages and old men, and only one of each.
1. Amazing

_She was amazing, and he wasn't going to let anyone tell her otherwise._

_x_

It wasn't to say she _hated_ the tavern, really. Not the workers themselves, or the owner, or even the building and its location. Actually, during the day, she kind of liked the Sagittarius. It was nice and well-lit, and there weren't _drunken morons_ bashing each other in the head all the time.

And her outfit was cute too.

"Hi there." Smirk.

Rita glared.

Too bad it was evening.

_"Hello?"_

_"I'd like to order."_

_"Can someone take my order?"_

_"Hey!"_

"I don't have time for this," Rita growled. Notepad in hand and pencil in the other, she spun on her heel and practically ran in the direction of the first voice. Already, she'd forgotten about teal eyes and purple coats. Instead, she was focusing on dish names, numbers, and never ending orders that took a long, _long_ time. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

How many times had she gone back and forth now?

Up at the counter, Rita wiped the sweat off her brow with her sleeve. How could people _eat_ so much food? It was just... just... _weird!_

_"I'd like to order."_

_"Hello?"_

_"Can someone take my order?"  
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_"S'cuse me! Kitty cat waitress!"_

She stiffened. That son of a-

_"Kitty cat waitress! Over here!"_

Raven grinned as Rita stomped up to his table, fuming. Surrounding patrons took no notice as she slammed her hands on the table, the sound muffled by the chatter and clink of drunken customers and beer mugs. She glared. "What the hell do you want?"

"What, I don't get the kitty cat special?" He pouted.

"I'm gonna clobber y-"

"Heeey, owner! I gotta complaint here! Yerrrr kitty cat waitress is-"

For a fleeting moment, Rita panicked and slammed her hands down on the table again. She... actually _liked_ being a waitress, and she was _not_ going to let him pile up complaints about her (ignoring the fact that yes, she did get complaints from plastered fools but they didn't count because what the hell did _they_ know?). With a blush, she muttered something incoherent and Raven leaned in, a hand to his ear.

"Whassssat? I couldn't hear ya'."

Rita looked at her hands and tried to hide her face behind her bangs, but it was pointless when all she could hide were her eyes. "... I said... what can I do for you tonight," then in an even quieter grumble, "... _meow?_"

Raven blinked and sobered up for a moment; he didn't think that she would _actually_ do it, but... he'd only wanted to press her buttons a little!

"I... uh... need a refill..." He watched her as she stalked up to the bar, grabbed a bottle at random, and returned with the tavern's hardest liquor (which wasn't even what he was drinking but he wasn't going to complain). "Thanks, I'll get tha-" He began, looking up and reaching for the bottle, but she'd already poured it into his cup and shoved it in his face. "Uh..."

"How much have you_ had_, anyway?" She eyed the bottles on his table; he'd gotten there an hour after she started, and she'd been working for four hours already. "Go home, or something!"

"Drunk? Nahhh, I ain't drunk." He waved a hand at her flippantly, emptying his cup and pouring himself another one with pursed lips. He wasn't listening. "Juuuuust a li'l _buzzzzzz_, maybe, but I ain't... I ain't drunk..." He buzzed like a bee at the end of the word "buzz".

_"K'nda crass, ain't she?"_

_"Yeah man, and she- she ain't even got jugs! So mean annnn'- an' cranky."_

_"Where's thaaaat-"_ The drunkard moved his hands in an hourglass shape. _"-busty babe?"_

_"Yeahh, yeah!"_

"Don't listen to those guys, _Ritaaa_." He looked at her gravely- yep, he was drunk (because would he really embarrass her like that if he was sober- no, wait, yes, yes he would)- with a finger in the air and downed his glass in one swallow. "Those guys don't knowww what they're talkin'... about." The men behind him laughed loudly and pointed fingers at the mage.

_"What a meannnnn girl. 'f I owned this plaaaaace, I'da fiiiired her an'- an' got some'n purdier an' wi'JUGS!"_

"_All right, that's enough!_" Rita jumped as Raven slammed his hands on the table and stood up to face the men. In a sudden jerk of motion, he flipped their table upside down- _how drunk was he, anyway?_- and pointed a condescending finger at them. "Ya' can't talk about her like that! She saved the world an' she cannnn _totally_ kick yer asses! So tell her yer' _sorry_ and that she's _amazing_ or_ I'll kill ya'... orrrrr somethin'!_"

Rita stared blankly that the drunk men grovelling at her feet. "... What the hell, old man?"

"Ya don't need ta listen to drunk guys puttin' ya downnnn Rita darlin'!" Grabbing her cat ears and putting them on his own head, he propped up a foot on his chair and pointed at her, never mind the fact that the whole tavern was watching him. "_Ya' know why? _It's cause yer'_ amaaaaaaazing! Juuuuust the way you aaare!_"

Lips twitching upward, Rita slapped a palm to her face as he fell down on his_._

Raven never forgot the day he made her laugh so hard she cried.

_x x x_

Hello again! Just doing another alphabet compilation, only this time I'm going for a whole bunch of scenes longer than those in Miscellaneous. That's right. 26 chapters that don't make sense/aren't connected to each other! Woohoo! If you have ideas for the next words (y'know, B to Z), go ahead and suggest them. I don't have every letter planned out, and I might use your idea so... yeah.

You know what song Raven is referring to, right? I've just heard that line all the time and never the whole song so I just went "eh, what the hell."

(I've got too much free time, and have been obsessed with these two lately. Did I mention that in my previously updated/published story/thing?)


	2. Beautiful

_There's something beautiful in her that makes him want to live._

_x_

Raven had always thought he knew everything about himself. He was an incredibly _handsome_ man for thirty-five, if he did say so himself, with tan skin that stayed the same shade even after death. His hair was dark brown, and his eyes were an abnormally light shade of teal. He liked to ogle the ladies from time to time; it was both something he couldn't help doing, and something he did to keep up his persona. He was a man of fine tastes: he knew his wines and his sake and could taste the differences between the good and the bad. He was a tall man, tall enough, but he couldn't remember his exact height. He'd have to get that checked out, sometime...

What more could he say about himself? Oh-

He was a failure at protecting the one person he truly cared about, and he had a rock for a heart, which made him more of a..._ thing_, rather than a human. He was a dead man, and yet he breathed and he ate and he slept, and he did all kinds of things no dead man could do. Things that no dead man _should_ do.

He was nothing but a puppet drunk on life, and he was stupid for letting himself become one.

He grinned wryly at that.

The only cure for stupidity is death, he'd said, and he'd seen the way Yuri's mouth tightened as he made up his mind. It wasn't like Raven himself had planted it in his thoughts - Yuri was already thinking it. All he needed was that little push to help him make up his mind, and the archer was the one who gave it. Cumore never saw it coming- but none of this was about Cumore.

This was about how Raven was stupid, how his only cure was death, and how he'd wanted it _so badly_.

He was disgusted with himself for being so weak and pathetic. If only he'd been stronger during the Great War ten years ago, _maybe Casey would still_-

Maybe Alexei wouldn't have gotten him wrapped around his stupid finger, controlling him like some stupid little puppet dancing to his master's rhythm. He wanted to die, but he was too scared at the same time. Life was his alcohol - a weak, foul tasting alcohol, but he became a drunkard nevertheless.

But then he'd become Raven and met Yuri and the others, and some of his views just got stuck so far up his rear he didn't dare risk finding them for a tiny little peek.

He'd seen more of the world travelling with his companions than he could ever have imagined. He found things worth seeing, things worth fighting for, things worth_ living for_. Hell, he'd felt like he was actually _alive_ again.

His alcohol became stronger and sweeter.

Sitting cross-legged against the front desk of the inn in Mantaic, Raven crossed his arms. In the background, he could hear Estelle and Judith chatting idly about something; Yuri was somewhere in the back with Repede, probably thinking about that creepy captain's pathetic death and when to meet Flynn at the oasis. Somewhere outside, Karol was outside enjoying the town's bustling festivities, and so was Rita. And speaking of Rita...

Raven leaned his head back against the desk with a _thump_ and sighed inwardly. He'd been there, jumping around the bonfire with all the children and laughing, genuinely having _fun_. He'd always been amazed at how full of life young people could be. He'd been dancing with one young girl, then swinging a young boy around, moving this way and that all over the place when suddenly, Rita had been swept into his arms- and she hadn't even given him a_ glare_ for touching her.

He'd been startled for the briefest moment at her cheeky grin; her eyes had shone with so much joy and excitement. Who was he to ruin such a good night, anyway? He'd recomposed himself with a grin, grabbed her hands, and stuck their bodies together, moving in an obviously fake, exaggerated tango. She'd had a toothy grin on her face the entire time, caught up in all the fun of the night, and when he brought her down for an overly dramatic dip, she laughed, and he laughed with her too.

It was like he felt something_ change_ within him, and he wasn't quite sure what the hell was going on.

They'd let go and Raven went on to play with a couple of other children, but all he saw was brown hair and green eyes. He'd faked a yawn (which turned into a real one anyway; why were they so contagious?) and stretched.

"_This ol' man's got some sleep to get. You kids are gonna wear me out!_" He'd said, and the children had whined before losing interest in him and resuming their jubilance.

Raven closed his eyes. There was something... _beautiful_ about the way Rita smiled. Something beautiful about her laugh. Something beautiful about the way her eyes sparkled in the light. Something beautiful about the way she was so passionate about her work. He ran a hand through his hair.

Something beautiful about her.

Why didn't she ever smile more often?

In the back of his mind, he wondered what would happen if she saw the rock (_blastia_, she'd probably glare at him until he was dead if he called it a rock in front of her) where his heart was. Knowing her, she'd... she'd...

He opened his eyes and looked at his hands in his lap. What _would_ she do? She had an affinity for blastia, that was for sure, but...

... would that extend to the blastia's living attachment?

_Good job, Raven ol' pal_, he scoffed inwardly, mocking and cruel, _someone ya' want ta' live for, and she's young enough to be your kid. And when she dies, it'll be all yer fault._

But what if he didn't follow with Alexei's plan-

Raven grit his teeth. _Just a puppet._

He leaned his head against the desk once more.

Would he be brave for accepting death without fear, or would he be a coward for giving in to his master's commands like an obedient puppet?

Would he be brave for fighting death, fighting Alexei, and living a _life_, or would he be a coward for continuing his life in fear of death?

Either way, it didn't seem to matter.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of copper-coloured hair and sparkling emerald eyes._  
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	3. Care

_Blend a little bit of caring rage and seemingly innocent candy, and you've got yourself a screw-you-over catalyst.  
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_x_

It wasn't to say Raven and Rita lived together, really (he just visited too much, that was all). That would just be... _weird._

He lived in either the guild quarters in Dahngrest or the Zaphias castle (_if_ he wasn't travelling), and she had her own place in Halure. It was a two-story house that looked much like her old home (only it wasn't a _shack_), but with extra rooms for her friends to stay in (of which only one was not taken over by books and whiteboards)_._ She herself never bothered to sleep in her own book-covered bed. She liked to read and research past midnight and wake up at noon, rather than sleep early and wake up early. The morning was just too... _early_, for lack of a better word; waking up during slowly when the day was lazy was _much better._

So when she woke up sitting at her desk at eleven in the morning to see the face of a man who was thirty-eight, who had been poking her cheek and whispering _hey, Rita, wake up,_ she was more than a _little_ groggy when she put her hand on his face and nonchalantly shoved him away.

"Ow- hey, Rita, watch it!" He complained, rubbing his head. "You should be nicer to your guests, ya' know? And- _hey!_ Don't go back to sleep again!"

"Nghh... go away." She mumbled incoherently into her arms.

"Hey now, is that the way you treat the people who are gonna take you out for some breakfast?" Raven glanced at the clock on the wall. "Er... lunch? No, wait, brunch?" He poked her again. "Heeeeeey..."

"Shut up." She groaned and kicked his shin, stretching slowly with a yawn. Her back popped and she worked out the cricks in her neck. Glancing at the clock, she glared at the man who was hopping on one foot. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" And so early in the day, too, she thought. "The door was locked."

"But Rita, sweetheart, your window was open! You shouldn't have it open so wide at night, you know. People could get in and steal your stuff." Raven nodded gravely, arms crossed. She gave him a blank stare.

"It's late spring, and my room is the attic."

"And there's a _very_ nice tree right over there." He pointed. She slapped a hand to her face and sighed.

"Idiot." She mumbled into her hand and stretched again. "What do you want?"

"What, I can't visit the genius mage once in a while?" He folded his arms behind his head. "How callous of you, Rita. I'm hurt!"

Rita scoffed. "Yeah right." Visiting _once in a while_ meant sneaking into her house one way or another every week or two and waking her up _early_. Sometimes, he would even cook something for her, not that she minded._ He may have be old and senile, but he makes a mean dessert_, she'd concluded. He was like a good housewife in the kitchen.

... Or a maid, or something.

An image of the winking archer holding up a spatula and a frying pan, dressed in a skimpy maid's outfit at her stove flashed through her mind and she shuddered. _Butler, think of him as a butler who cooks you food_, she mentally chanted. Her stomach growled, snapping her out of her thoughts.

"You said something about food?" She asked.

"Yep! Ol' Raven the-" _old man_, she muttered, "**_Great_**'s gonna take you out to that place down the street for some lunch!" He stood proudly with his feet apart, hands at his waist. "Or breakfast," _brunch_, she waved him off, "young girls need their nutrition, ya' know."

"Hm..." She eyed him suspiciously before her stomach growled again. "Yeah, okay, let's go. Just give me ten minutes."

"Yes ma'am!" He watched her shut the bathroom door behind her and scratched his chin. "By the way, I got somethin' ta ask ya about, but it can wait until later."

Now, how was he going to go about this? He could be blunt and say it to her face, or drop some subtle hints, or maybe even ones that were more obvious. Genius eighteen year old she may be, that didn't mean she could pick up on every little hint there was-

Could he do it delicately? No, no, no, she wouldn't get it. Maybe he could use metaphors. She was good with those...

"Hey. Old man."

And he definitely couldn't mention blastia...

"Hey."

House appliances! That was it, he'd refer to-

"Ow! What the hell, Rita- Oh, you're done already?" Raven yelped before rubbing a hand on his behind. "Why'd ya kick me so hard?"

"No, I have to find my coat and boots for the snow. Yes, I'm done, and that wasn't even hard, nor did it hurt." She crossed her arms. "Now, are we ready to go? Or do you need more time to stare at the wall?"

"Nope! I'm good!" He chirped cheerfully, guiding Rita out of the room. "Let's go, let's go!"

_x_

They'd just stepped out of the house when a familiar voice said, "... Rita? Raven...?"

Rita turned the key in the lock and turned around. "Estelle? What are you doing here?"

The princess clasped her hands together. "We just came to visit you since we were in town today."

"We?"

"Oh, um, yes, Yuri and Repede went ahead to the little cafe down at the end of the street. He said he would get a spot for us in case you were still asleep..." She smiled and her gaze flickered to Raven. "I hope he got us a table with enough room for one extra person."

"Nah, don't worry about it, the old man can just sit on the floor if there's no room." Rita shrugged nonchalantly. "And-"

"Hey!" Raven cried out indignantly, clapping a hand over her mouth. "That sounds perfect. The cafe thing, I mean, not the sitting on the floor- ow!" He winced as she bit his finger. "That wasn't very nice-" she glared, and he put up his hands, "okay, okay! Sheesh! This ol' man's gonna die from too much wear and tear from this little fireball, my dear." He looked at Estelle.

She giggled with a gloved hand over her mouth. "Hehe, shall we get going?"

They walked at a slow pace, enjoying the fresh air and warm temperature. Raven slung his arms behind his head and watched the two girls as they chatted amiably with each other. Estelle looked the same as ever, still wearing the same dress she had worn during their travels. He looked at Rita, who was wearing a yellow tank top and light blue shorts. A quick glance showed that her pink-lensed goggles were still perched atop her head.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thought, she should wear more clothes. Or at least wear such a small outfit behind closed doors. He stroked his chin and nodded to himself. She was a dear travelling companion-comrade-friend, just like the rest of the group, but most of all, she was a young woman. She'd _filled out_ a little more in the recent years he'd seen her; she'd grown to be attractive, and her fiery passion and tart personality was bound to grab the attention of young men her age. He was _so_ not going to let any boy he didn't approve of get near her.

Not one person had his approval so far. Fatherly instinct, he'd briefly thought to himself, and a damn good one, because no one was going to steal her away. From what? He didn't know.

"-spacing out again, old man?"

"Huh? What?" He blinked.

"We're here." Rita said, matter-of-factly. She pushed open the doors and he looked up at the sign above that said _Aries_.

_Must be owned by the lady who runs the Saggitarious_, he thought to himself as he followed behind the princess.

Over at a wall, Yuri waved at them with a fork in his mouth. Repede lay on the floor looking bored. "Hey, over here!" He looked skeptically at Raven, who took a seat next to him as the girls sat down in front of them. "Wasn't expecting extra baggage to come along. What's the occasion, old man?"

"What, can't I just stop by for a visit every now and then?"

"Maybe. Maybe not." He fiddled with his fork. "I ordered something for you guys already, by the way. Not you, old man. You wanted that croissant, right, Estelle?" She nodded, and he looked at Rita. "I got you something for breakfast too, since I was pretty sure you were still sleeping. Guess he beat us to the punch in waking you up, huh?"

"It's a special skill o' mine," Raven grinned, leaning forward. He lowered his voice as if he was giving very personal advice. "I've woken her up so many times, she doesn't blast holes in the wall anymore."

Yuri raised his eyebrows, actually looking surprised and faintly interested. "Woooow, good job old man. Now when Rita visits Estelle in the castle, the maids can wake her up without being burned."

"Do you guys want to die or someth-"

"Hey! Grub's here!" Raven cheered as a waitress approached their table. She placed a plate with a croissant glazed over with apricots and blueberries in front of Estelle. Rita got a plate piled with steaming scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, and small sausages. They all looked at Yuri.

"Is that...?"

"Why would you...?"

"_Dessert crepes_, Yuri? At this time of the day?"

Yuri shrugged. Pink dusted his cheeks lightly as he tried to look cool. "Shut up." He muttered, digging his fork into the crepe and bringing it up to his lips. For a moment, it almost seemed like Yuri had paused time blissfully, savouring the sweet dessert in his mouth.

Raven thought for a fleeting moment, if this was one of those comics he'd seen girls reading (he saw them in Rita's house, too!), there would be sparkles around a miniature Yuri and his eyes would be closed. Rita gave a snort of laughter.

"I hope this stuff is expensive, cause the old man here is paying." She started to eat her food slowly, and Raven scrunched up his face at her.

"Ah, right, miss?" He called the waitress. "Can I have a cup of coffee, please?" The waitress returned with a steaming mug, and he gave her a wink and a flirty smile. Her cheeks turned pink. "Thanks a lot." He beckoned her closer and asked quietly, "also, could ya get me an extra fork here?"

"What was that about?" Yuri muttered into his fork. Estelle simply giggled and Rita eyed the archer suspiciously. The waitress returned with a fork and Raven smiled in thanks-

Then he swiped eggs off of her plate.

"Hey!"

"Don't be stingy now, Rita darlin'!" He waved his fork around in the air after he swallowed, then stole a sausage. He took a sip of his coffee. Not sweet. Excellent. "After all, you've got more than you can eat on yer plate. By the way, how's that stuff goin' on between you guys in Zaphias?" He turned to Estelle and Yuri, ignoring Rita's glare and attempt to move her food away from his reach. He stole more food just to spite her, and she glared at him and kept eating.

"Stuff?" Estelle's cheeks matched her hair, and suddenly Yuri found his dessert a whole lot more interesting. "What do you mean by stuff?"

"Oh, you know, royal weddings, marriage-" Estelle looked at Rita pleadingly, "council members kickin' Yuri's ass here and there - how's that all workin' out for ya?"

He opened his mouth again, but Rita cut him off quickly. "Didn't you say you had something to ask me about?"

He hesitated for half a second. "Right, right!" He pointed his fork at her. "You're good at building and fixing things, right?" She nodded. "Y'see, the place I've been staying at recently had been having all these problems with the... uh... _water system... thingy_." Yes, that was a good metaphor. "I dunno how to fix it, so I was hopin' you could tell me how."

She looked at her food; more than half of it was already gone. "Well, what's wrong with it?"

He stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Well, sometimes it makes all kinds of noises. It's like a _whirrrr_ or a _tick, tick_ kinda noise. And I think it's a bit leaky from time to time, too."

Rita chewed thoughtfully. "Well if it's making noises like that, there might be either a couple of valves loose, or some pipes might be unscrewed. That would also explain the leaking. Are the pipes rusty at all?"

He scratched his cheek. "Well, they probably aren't rusty - I don't think they're even made of metal."

"Is this at the castle?" Estelle asked obliviously. "I could ask our craftsmen to take a look at it-"

"No, no, it's not at the castle. And I don't think anyone there can really fix this one, y'see, 'cause it's kind of... _custom made_."

"Why don't you take me there and I'll have a look at it, then?" Rita asked. "I'm finished with most of my research right now, and those imperial mages haven't bothered me with anything lately so I have spare time-"

"No, you don't have to do that. Like I said, I wanna fix it myself." He shook his head and drained his mug.

"What about the guy who made it, then?" Rita asked suspiciously. This was starting to sound like he was hiding something...

"Er, well, ya' see, he's kinda dead." He scratched the back of his head and brought the mug up to his lips. Damn. Empty. "Uh... Rita?" They all looked at her.

She swallowed, then put her utensils down slowly. "And when did this all start...?" This _something_ he was hiding started to sound a _lot_ like...

"Uh... maybe a week ago? Two?"

Seconds of silence ticked by before something clicked in her head. Comprehension filled her eyes before rage took over, and she slammed her hands down on the table. Estelle cried out in alarm, but Yuri put a hand on her shoulder. He tapped his chest, and Estelle visibly relaxed, but she looked at Rita worriedly.

"You stupid _idiot_," she seethed, "_two weeks_ and you did _nothing_ about it?"

"Listen, Rita," Raven began to sweat nervously, "it's nothing serious, really. Just some really minor nicks here and there probab-"

"Nothing serious my _ass_." She blurted out angrily. "You don't know what's _serious_ and what's _not_, so you don't get a say in something like this." Running a hand through her hair, she groaned. "Two weeks... I can't _believe_ you. Get up. Come on. Let's _go_." She stood suddenly, grabbing Raven's wrist and hauling him out of his seat. "Yuri, looks like all this is on you today. Just mug this idiot for the money the next time you see him." He gave a small 'no problem' and she tugged sharply. "Come on, _move._"

"Uh- bye guys-" He said as Rita began dragging him out of the doors quickly.

"How could you leave it like that? Two weeks, old man. Leaking for _two weeks_ and you don't give much of a damn about it until now. How bad is it? No, don't say anything, you don't even think bleeding from your heart is _serious_." Raven looked at her blankly. Was she always this... _cute_ when she was mad? When was the last time he made her so angry, anyway? "If any of your arteries are leaking, I'm probably going to have to crack you open and cauterize them. If I have to do that, chances are I have to do the same to a lot more of them. I'm sure Alexei would have at least made the material durable if you've lived this long, and I'll have to watch the smaller tubes..."

They reached her house and Rita tried to open the door. "Dammit... where's my key...?" She fumbled with the pockets in her shorts before unlocking the door swiftly and dragging him inside. She chucked the key off to the side and slammed the door shut behind him. "Come on." She dragged him up the stairs toward the spare guestroom. "If I remember how to crack you open right, this shouldn't take as long as it sounds..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Raven put his hands up and Rita's arm came up at the same time - she was still holding onto his wrist. "Wasn't the last time ya' opened me up like, what, three years ago?"

She stopped and glared at him. "Yes, it was, now shut up, get on the bed, and take off your shirt." She pushed him through the open doorway and practically _threw_ him on the bed. Or, for a better word, _towards_ the bed.

"I- uh- wha?" Raven gulped, rooted to the spot as Rita ran out. Her steps pitter-pattered on the stairs; he could hear drawers opening and closing, books being thrown aside, and many different clanking noises. _Did she just try to get him on the bed and tell him to strip?_

She returned to the room with an armful of tools when she saw him still standing there with a dumb look on his face. She had a sucker in her mouth; the ends of the shredded wrapper stuck out of her hand. (Sometimes, she found it more easy to work when she had something in her mouth - once the candy disappeared, the stick would give her something to chew on.) She glared and slammed the door shut behind her with her foot. "What are you doing, standing there like an idiot? Take off your jacket and your shirt."

"Do I have ta'?" He whined. "Can't I just unbutton a couple-"

"_No_." She growled, visibly ticked and dumping her tools on the dresser beside the bed. "The metal might snag on your shirt, or it might get burnt because it was in the way. Now take it off."

Raven swallowed nervously. He would have been uncomfortable (but fine) if he only loosened a couple of buttons, but taking off his top in front of someone was a big _nono_ on his part. A guy could be self-conscious, couldn't he? "Last time you were fine with me leaving my shirt on, can't we just-"

Frustrated, Rita took two large steps forward, grabbed his collar, and shoved him backwards onto the bed.

"Listen here, you big moron." She seethed, climbing on top of him. One hand let go of his collar to grab the white stick protruding from her mouth, cramming the candy in the other side or her cheek. She bent to yank him up so that their faces were inches apart. "I don't give a _rat's ass_ if you think I could be overreacting, but I am _not_ taking the chance of having you die in _my_ presence, especially when I have _specifically told you a long time ago_ to see me right away if _anything's_ wrong." Her grip tightened. "If you want to try dying with heart problems, you should have stayed the hell away from civilization, but I'm alive, and I'll track you down if you even try that, and I'll _make you live._ In this situation, when I tell you to take off your clothes, you do what I say._ Got it?_"

The room seemed to have gotten a lot hotter once she'd climbed on top of him. Raven tensed and gulped nervously as he started to sweat.

"G... got it..." He nodded, half listening to her, but his attention was drawn more to the way her legs wrapped around him as she straddled his waist, and the way her left shoulder looked so smooth as the strap of her tank top fell. Suddenly, he was aware of how scandalously short her shorts were, and _exactly_ how much skin she was baring. She let go of his shirt and straightened as he dropped back down onto the bed. She ran a hand through her hair, pulled the candy our of her mouth, and sighed. Raven stared at her flushed face (which was red from anger) and her pink lips when the sweet disappeared behind them once again.

Fatherly instinct my_ ass_, Raven thought fleetingly, wryly. All it took was a little bit of rage and candy to act as a catalyst, and now he was _screwed_.

"Good, now _take off your clothes and let me_-" She swiveled her head around as the door suddenly opened. A pink-tinted Estelle stood in the doorway with a covering her mouth. Behind her, Yuri was leaning against the wall, shoulders shaking with a hand over his mouth as he tried to muffle his laughter.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to inter- um... I-I'll just come back at... at another time..." The princess stammered, stepping back and closing the door. Raven put a shaky hand on his face as Rita was putting together the pieces of what just happened. His shirt... the bed... she was telling him to take it off so she could get to his blastia... So what?

Listening carefully, they could both hear Estelle asking Yuri in a hushed voice, "_I thought she needed to fix his blastia so I was going to offer some help, but..._" Their footsteps faded away.

Rita glanced at the mirror on the wall, noted her flushed face and _position on top of Raven_, and turned a vibrant red. She scrambled off of him and flailed her arms. "You... I... _augh_, I can't _believe- why didn't you say- I'M GOING TO KILL Y- UGH!_" She hated herself at that moment. She wanted to blame everything on the man on the bed, but she couldn't call him a pervert because the whole situation was _her fault_. He didn't even make any sly comments! If he did, it would have made sense if she called him names, but...

Throwing all reasoning into the wind, she slapped him with the force of a punch and knocked him unconscious. She looked at her hand, then at him.

That... wasn't supposed to happen.

_x_

Rita rolled on her back, wiping the sweat off her brow. Gently, she let her tools roll onto the floor.

Unbuttoning his top when he was out cold was much more easier than asking him to take off his shirt when he was awake, though Rita was awkwardly more aware of her actions as she'd shakily reached for the first button. He was too heavy to lift up, and she was afraid he would wake up in the middle of her (_partially_) undressing him. The only way she could operate on him was to half lie on top of him.

She glanced at the blastia, lost in thought. Overall, the old man had been right about the issue not being serious. All she had to do was mend a couple of minor tears and remold the sharp edges of the blastia's metal, which were the causes of the little cuts in the tubes. Whatever Alexei had been planning, he seemed set on using Raven as a puppet for a very long time - the tubes were made of durable, synthesized components and the metal was a high-grade alloy. Of course he wouldn't want to use crappy materials: the process of fitting, reforming, and melding, not to mention all the detail in the work, must have costed a small _fortune_.

The old man had taken more care of it than she gave him credit for. It was hardly scratched, the metal was polished carefully, no problems with the formula...

Absentmindedly, she traced the tendrils surrounding the core with a finger and looked at the clock. _Two o'clock_.

_Huh_, she thought with a yawn, _it took me an hour to do all that._ Her eyes began to drift shut. _At least he's not so bad to look at, I guess._

She curled up, using his arm as a pillow, and fell asleep.

_x x x_

Oh my GOD, over _4400 words_ for a chapter. I haven't done that in _years_. I can hardly believe it. Wow_._

Thanks to everyone who has ever reviewed or sent me a kind message [you all know who you are :)] and waited for this next chapter. I was trying to stay away from other stories so that I hopefully wouldn't copy any ideas, although this... might be partly inspired by _Dances_ by _Aoicakes_ with the blastia-opening and stuff. My original idea was a lot shorter and had no Estelle or Yuri but... As you can see, things change.

On a side note, I have managed to get a friend into the Raven x Rita fandom, and she's never played the game. Woohoo!

Last thing, a bit of a comment to _Sylph Writer_'s review: I don't know if I've said this in an author's note somewhere before or not, but I'll just say it here as a little blurb for all readers who may be interested. When I was playing through the game on my first run, I was in Heracles after getting Raven back into the party, and the thought of him being with Rita _never_ occurred to me. I'd paused the game, hit up the last page of the Vesperia archive, and lo and behold: there was _gloria_ by _Empatheia_. I was curious, so I read it and just got completely _hooked_ on the pairing.

I absolutely do not regret it. :)


	4. Doctor

_So, maybe not all doctors were as bad as she thought._

_x_

There were many things about Rita that made her seem no different from her high school peers. She was a studious, hard worker who attended her classes and paid absolutely _no_ attention to her teachers. She loved sweets, as most girls her age tended to be prone to, and often just sat in her desk and stared off into space with a cheek in her palm. To most people, it looked like she was simply daydreaming.

Just as well, there were many things about Rita that made her _much_ different from the others.

She was in her graduating year at the age of fifteen while everyone else was in their later teens (seventeen, eighteen, who cared? There was this one guy who was jealous of her, though, at sixteen with grades that weren't quite up to par with hers but good enough to push him up levels- who the hell named their kid _Witcher_ anyway? A kid with that name was bound to be a sour person). She got perfect scores because _hello, she was a genius_. Why couldn't they understand the fact that she didn't need to be there? She was already taking university courses outside of her high school classes.

Stupid government and their stupid laws.

Rita Mordio didn't daydream; daydreaming was for people who had nothing better to do. She, on the other hand, had formulas to figure out. Equations to solve. Ways to create better sources of energy instead of bastardizing the world's landscapes and oceans. Pharmaceuticals to examine and provide proof of this one's effectiveness, that one's side effects, _that stuff is completely bullshit, why did you even bring it up? If anything, it's going to kill someone, not cure them, you moron-_

Medicine took up a sixth of her studies. Not too much, but enough for her to have knowledge of some things. She lived alone - if she got sick, too bad, no one would be there to take her to the doctor unless she called Estelle to get her some medicine from the pharmacy or something - and she had much dislike for doctors by default. Not the normal teenager's dislike with the excuses of "it's so embarrassing" and "I don't want to worry my parents or anything"_._ It was more like "I hate that creepy bastard," "My info is personal, so bug off, you son of a_-"_ and "The other patients always looked sick, complaining of this and that and having to get shots, and they'd come out looking _worse_."

Moreover, studying medicine meant studying the human body, and studying the human body meant finding out how few hours of sleep per night Rita could manage without completely passing out during the day. Not that she really cared about that, though, since she liked to wake up _early_ and stay up however late she wanted because sleep was for pansies. More time awake meant more time learning, and more time learning meant discovering more things she didn't know about. More time discovering things she didn't know about meant more time learning, and more time learning meant more time spent awake. It was a vicious cycle that Rita embraced whole-heartedly because _fuck you, sleep._

As it turned out, sleep had an opinion of its own, being a _fuck you too_, when Rita passed out in the middle of her second block that morning.

Estelle, being Estelle and one of the girl's only friends, cried out in alarm and startled Yuri out of his nap in the back corner of the room by the window. He woke with a start, flailed about for a second and a half, then groaned at the sight of his teacher's glare.

Because Kaufman did _not_ quite tolerate it when he'd fall asleep in her class - _Business is important_, she'd introduced on the first day, _because money makes the world go round_ - considering the fact that his only good grades were in physical education.

"_Take her to the infirmary, Yuri,_" he sulked to himself down the hallway with Rita on his back. "_If you're going to sleep in my class, you might as well do something useful now that you're awake. Don't forget to come for detention at the end of the day._" He scoffed. Like he was going back there after school. "Why are you even in this class, Rita?" Yuri muttered to the unconscious girl. "You don't even belong in a class like this, and yet the system just shoves you in here like the rest of us."

Rita fidgeted, still asleep.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, thanks for tutoring me with some crap." He sighed. "Without you and Estelle I'd probably be completely failing every class. Hey, look, we're here." Sliding open the door to the infirmary, he stepped in and kicked it shut it behind him. "Hey, old man. You in here?"

There was a snort of an interrupted nap. "... Nghh. What do ya want, Yuri? Get in a fight with Flynn again? Or that Zagi kid?" A yawn. "What needs patchin' up this time?"

"It's not me that needs to be here." Yuri said irritably. "And that last one wasn't even _partially_ my fault; that guy just jumped on me out of nowhere!"

A head poked out from one of the curtains around a bed. "Well then maybe he just wanted yer long silky hair- what's this? Did you beat up a girl, Yuri? How cruel!"

"Shut up, nurse!" Yuri snapped defensively. No insulting the hair, thank-you-very-much. "I didn't do anything to her! She just passed out in the middle of class!"

"_Hey-hey-whoa-whoa-whoa_- _no._ School _doctor_, Mister Yuri Lowell. Raven the Great_ Doctor._ Not _nurse._"

"Uh huh, sure, whatever you say, old man." He gave him an exasperated look. "Can you move your ass and help me get her on the bed now?"

"Oh, Yuri!" Raven gasped scandalously at him. "How _naughty_ of you!"

If Yuri could have slapped a hand to his face, he would have done so. As the situation was, however, being occupied with a sleeping _person_ on his back, all he could do was fix a withering stare on the school doctor. Too bad he couldn't give him a good suplex._.._

"Yikes! You could kill someone with that glare of yours, ya know?" The curtain drew back and Raven stepped forward, rubbing the back of his neck. The ends of his wrinkled lab coat fanned out behind him. In the background, the bed was a ruffled mess. If it wasn't obvious he was sleeping before, it was now. "Let's get her all snugged up in that bed I warmed just for this moment. My sight of the future never fails me, you know."

"Right, right, whatever you say, old man." Yuri just sighed exasperatedly and set the girl down on the bed with Raven's help.

"Name?" Raven covered her with the blanket.

"Huh?" Yuri blinked.

"What's her name?"

"Oh. Rita." Raven looked at him as if to say _go on_. "Rita Mordio."

"_She's_ Mordio?" Raven stared in astonishment. "This little one is the one who sends kids here all the time?" He chuckled and shook his head. "From the way they always mentioned her, I figured she was some kinda tall violent giant."

"You've got it all right except for the tall giant part." Yuri smirked. "She does get pretty violent."

"Ahh, I can take a few hits." The doctor scoffed and waved a flippant hand. "Get back to class, young'n. Doctor Raven is here to keep watch over our dear friend's health!"

Yuri just shook his head and left the infirmary, hands in his pockets. He had better things to do than be around some old fart.

Things like going back to sleep in class and dreaming of kicking Flynn's ass to win the right to earn Estelle's hand in marriage. And Flynn didn't even have romantic feelings for her! But he didn't care. He whistled a tune as he walked down the hallway.

Nope, he didn't care. Flynn was going _down_.

Back in the infirmary, Raven gazed at the sleeping figure with a scrutinizing eye. Genius, high IQ, fifteen, yadda yadda yadda _blah_. None of that mattered when one was skinny as hell with deep bags under her eyes.

For a genius, he rubbed his chin, thinking, she seemed to know nothing about health.

Ah, well. He sat in his rolling chair and leaned back, hands clasped over his stomach. Propping his feet up on the end of the bed, he yawned and closed his eyes. He could scold her later when they both woke up...

_x_

When Rita opened her eyes, she wondered what the hell she was doing in a hospital. Or at least... it looked _somewhat_ like a hospital. Sitting up quietly, she examined the room with a critical eye. The curtains around the bed were open, pushed back against the wall. There were posters on the wall - okay, this didn't look anything like a hospital anymore - but she hardly paid them any attention.

At the foot of her bed was a snoring figure. His head was facing her way, lying in his arms on the bed by her legs. His brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck in a scraggly puff of a ponytail and his glasses were askew on his nose. Rita's hands itched to take them off and set them down on the table because _are you stupid? Who sleeps with pieces of breakable-into-tiny-shards-that-can-embed-into-your-eyes glass and- white lab coat._

This guy was a doctor. Rita Mordio _hated_ doctors. (Or... well, not all of them, really, just that one red-eyed personal doctor she hadn't gone to in years.) There was no way she was going to stay here anymore- she glanced at the clock, 4:13 PM - oh _shit_, she was late for a class. Rita cursed under her breath and ripped the covers off, covering the sleeping man's head with them. He woke up and flailed, but she paid him no attention as she jumped off the bed and scanned the hooks by the door. If she'd been there since however long she'd been there, then Estelle or Yuri would have... Ah, there it was. Speeding forward, she grabbed her bag - there was a note from Estelle; she'd read it later, but for now it was a crumpled piece of paper in one of her bag's many compartments - and slid the door open.

A hand grabbed her wrist. "Whoa, there, missy, where are you goin' in such a rush after waking-_!_"

Rita slapped him hard and his head snapped to the side. His grip loosened and she wrenched her arm free, running down the hall.

Yuri was right, Raven thought. She _is_ violent. He rubbed his cheek tenderly.

... _Oww..._

_x_

_"Hahahaha! She slapped you? Are you serious, old man? What'd you do?"_

_"Shut up! I didn't do anything to her, I swear!"_

_"Ow! Hey, watch it with the antiseptic crap! That stings!"_

_"If you don't want it to hurt, Yuri, maybe you shouldn't be picking fights with Flynn so much..."_

_"The lady's right, Yuri."_

_"S-shut up. He started it."_

_"Riiiiiiight."_

_"At least I didn't get slapped for no reason!"_

_"Hey!"  
><em>

_x_

Raven honestly wasn't surprised when Yuri returned to the infirmary carrying Rita again a week later. Considering how she'd looked like a person who hardly got any sleep, he doubted she would have started sleeping more.

"Come on, bring her in, and get yer ass back to class." He waved Yuri over to set her down on the bed. "Next time you see her, tell her to get more sleep. If I get hit again today, I won't get the chance to._"_

"Uh huh. Will do, old man." Yuri left with a casual wave behind him.

"Tell her ta eat more, too!" Sighing, Raven sat down and reached for his notepad.

For a while, the only sounds in the room were of gentle breathing and the light _skritch skritch_ of pencil on paper. _Age: 15, weight: unmeasured, height: 150 cm, shows signs of sleep deprivation, undernourishment. No signs of serious physiological issues, slaps hurt like hell, pretty cute-_ Wait... Raven's lips quirked downwards, crossing the words out. Those didn't belong there...

There was a groan and Raven looked up. Rita's eyebrows furrowed and she shifted slightly, but she stayed asleep. The sunlight bounced off a thin layer of sweat, and her breaths seemed slightly... off. They sounded a little like shallow breaths...

He stood up, letting the objects clatter on his desk. In less than four strides, he was leaning over her. Raven put a hand to her forehead, then sighed in relief. Her fever was slight, but she wasn't _burning_. Still, she needed a cool cloth over her forehead. That was coming right up~.

It was after an hour or so when Rita woke up as Raven replaced the cloth for the sixth time. "What..." The cloth fell off as she sat up and coughed, trying to clear her throat. Raven went to the sink and gave her a glass of cold water. She tried again. "What am I doing here?"

"Well, ya kinda passed out in class again, Rita darlin'." He cringed at her flushed glare and held his hands in front of him protectively. "... Please don't hit me again. I don't wanna be un-handsome-ified."

She scoffed at him with half-lidded eyes. She was too tired, dammit... "Handsome my ass, moron." She retorted. "What time is it?"

Raven looked at his watch. "Oh, a little past noon. Not gonna run out and hit me again, are ya?" She glared, and he cowered again. "Okay, okay, I got it! No more teasin' the kitty cat."

"Who the hell are you, anyway?"

He gasped in fake shock. "You mean, you don't know who I am? Unbelievable! I'm Raven the Great! School Doctor of-"

"Oh, so you're that nurse Yuri always goes to after he gets into a fight with someone." She looked at him thoughtfully for a moment. "Where are your glasses?"

"_Hey_," he bristled, "_again_ with the nurse thing? How many times do I have to tell everyone? I'm the school _doctor_, not _nurse_! Kids these days!" He ran his hand through his hair. "My glasses? I don't wear- oh, those ones! I wear those fake ones 'cause they make me look _charming_." He winked.

Rita gave a mocking snort of laughter. "Whatever you say, _nurse_."

"_Doctor_," he retaliated, "and as a doctor, I'm telling ya, you need waaaaay more sleep and food. Do you even eat? I swear you're like a _twig_, darlin', and that's not a good thing. Full meals? Lunch? Dinner? _Breakfast?_"

"Wha- I don't need time for sleep, you old fogey, I'm too busy to find the time for that." She had the air of a pompous cat, sitting on a throne above all others. "I've got midterms to do, papers to write, and research to finish; food can come later."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that yer not a genius in everything, huh?" Raven tsked. She glowered at him. "You say all this work you've got to do is important, but it won't mean a thing when yer dyin' in a hospital bed 'cause ya don't eat or sleep. Yer still, what fifteen? You have your whole life ahead of you to keep workin' on crap like that."

"Work is important, and I'm not going to be dying because of-"

"That's what they all say, Rita darlin', and the next thing you know, _bam_! They're in a hospital or... well, yeah. Lack of sleep and lack of food leads to all kinds of problems, and alllll these problems can lead to death. Don't you ever go to a family doctor or somethin'?" Raven put his hand on her forehead, but she pushed it away. "Relax, I'm just seein' if you're still warm up there."

"I'm not going to see Dinoia ever again, that _creep."_ She shuddered. "I swear, it's like he was making everyone worse every time they walked into his office..."

Raven eyed her disbelievingly. "Yer doctor... was Dinoia? Alexei Dinoia?" She nodded. "I knew that guy... I was an intern for him for a while. He seemed like a good guy - at first, but then it's like somethin' in his brain snapped after he got hit on some kinda drug or... I dunno. But yeah, I think he got locked up a while ago for messin' with his patient's medications. Something about testing experimental drugs and viruses and all that. It was like he was trying to create a zombie apocalypse. Thank god you're here, huh?" He grinned.

Rita said nothing. It was kind of hard for her to believe that - what if he was just lying to her? - but he didn't seem like he would - a drug? - maybe it made sense... augh. She didn't know. She just hoped he was really locked up somewhere far away.

Raven stood up. "Weeeell," he ended the word with a pop of his lips, "you can listen to my advice from before and relax when you get home later - or somethin', but I suggest that with you bein' a genius and all, it wouldn't hurt to sleep in here until the end of the day - don't give me that look! It's not like I'm gonna do anythin' to ya while you're sleeping! - or you can go back to your useless classes after the bell. Besides, lunch is almost over, and I'm _starving_."

She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Getting some sleep actually sounded like a good idea right now, and her afternoon classes _were_ useless... and now that she wasn't distracted, she realized, she was _hungry_.

As if on cue, her stomach growled and she blushed. Raven just chuckled, opening the door. "Yep, food sounds like a good idea to you too. Stay here - or leave, if ya want, but yer still sick - and I'll come back with food for ya anyway. I hope ya like sandwiches, cause I'm _not_ going to buy you a five-star meal."

"You don't even _sell_ five-star meals here, anyway!" She shouted at him, but he'd already shut the door and left. Rita grumbled and crossed her arms. She had maybe a hectic month left to finish cramming her work in, but then once that was done she could finally relax out of school... maybe.

Actually, considering how much cramming she'd _already_ gone through, half of it was already done. But Rita didn't care, because food and sleep sounded great right about now. Maybe this nurse-doctor guy wasn't as bad as she thought?

She eyed the poster of a half-naked, busty woman above his desk.

... Or maybe he was.

_x_

Rita found herself in the infirmary more often, mostly during lunch time, with Estelle and Yuri tagging along more recently. It was quiet in there, minus the doctor's complaints of "_crumbs, crumbs everywhere_" and keeping important places of his "_clean and sanitary_".

There weren't even many people who ever needed to visit the infirmary _anyway_. It was like the school was just paying some kind of lazy bum to sit in the room all day sleeping and mess around with students' minds - but it wasn't so bad, because he'd always leave to buy her lunch whining and return saying "_once a gentleman, always a gentleman, here's your lunch, my darling~_" and she would hit him over the head because _that's embarrassing, you moron, shut up_.

Food was not the way to man's heart, it was the way to Rita's. Food and sleep and research and smiling company and-

_Augh_, not the way to her _heart_ dammit, but what other word could be used? Friendship? No, that was weird, being "friends" with a twenty year age gap, besides being between a student and a nurse-doctor. Companionship? What the hell was the difference?

Unwilling to dig further into the depths of _what the hell_, Rita bit into her sandwich and listened to Estelle's chattering of a novel-in-process. (Something about a bunch of random people getting together and saving the world and something called _blastia_. Huh.) She was grateful for the extra distracting company, because it filled the room with noise and eased all the random little silent tensions that had been happening lately when her two friends weren't there.

Gratefulness of distractions had nothing to do with blushing at things a certain doctor said or did. It had absolutely nothing to do with her falling down two weeks ago and Raven catching her - nothing to do with the way their faces had been too close, or her blush, or the way he seemed to look at her that made her stomach go on a roller coaster and her heart try to _punch its way out of her chest cavity_.

(How she wished these... _out of character_ actions of hers could be blamed on lack of sleep and food, but she _was_ eating and sleeping more...)

And she most certainly did _not_ think he looked cute whenever he was sleeping.

_... Shut up, teenage hormones._

_x_

Rita wasn't sure of what the _hell_ had just happened - all she knew was that it was four days before graduation, no one else was around, and her lips were _very_ occupied by something warm, soft, and very much another person's pair of lips. The only thing she could remember from seconds ago was something along the lines of _spit it out_, _that look in your eyes, what does it mean, I want the truth, I like you, but you're a moron, I-, _and she, never having been a vocally emotional person (because _feelings_, _ew_), had stopped mid-sentence, stalked up to the window, violently shut the blinds and threw the curtains closed (who was she kidding, anyway? They were on the second floor - who could get high up enough to see them?). The room had gotten darker - the lights had been off for the sun lit the room up well enough up until now.

She'd stood there, gripping the fabric with shaking hands, and the doctor had stepped behind her to say _I'm sorry, I'm too old for you, move on and forget about me_ - but she'd spun around, grabbed his lab coat, and meshed their lips together violently - and all that seemed to be wrong to him was forgotten when he'd kissed her back with equal force, his tongue running softly across her bottom lip before he bit down on it sensually.

Rita made a small sound at the back of her throat, fistfuls of white fabric tightening even further, tugging forward as if they still had too much space between them. Raven's arms wrapped around her small body tightly, one hand in her hair, the other on her back, crushing her to him like she was his life support.

It was like fire, with all the heat and the passion and the type of warmth that drew you in, and with all the dangers of pulling you in so close you couldn't escape - but then at the same time it was like water, drowning and drowning and pulling you in so deep you couldn't get out - and they were drowning in each other, their minds swimming and their breaths running short.

Raven pulled away first; whether it was from lack of air or himself trying to prevent encouragement (and he did a _great_ job at that), he didn't know. Rita looked at him, flushed and breathless with jelly-legs and swollen lips. He pulled his hand down from her hair and stroked her cheek with a thumb, bringing them down to sit on - lucky them, right by the window - one of the infirmary's three beds. He held her close with her ear positioned _just_ so, so that she could hear his loud heartbeat without trying to.

"I'm twenty years your senior-" he muttered softly, kissing the top of her head and stroking her hair.

"I don't care, and you don't seem to either," she interrupted softly, listening to the soft _ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum_ of his heart while trying to calm her own fluttery heartbeat.

"You're still a student here-" He nuzzled her neck, tightening his possessive hold on her. _Excuses, excuses, excuses_, but he just couldn't let her go.

"I graduate in four days," she tried to make it snappy, but it didn't quite work when he kissed the junction between her neck and shoulder, leaving her breathless and weak. He moved to look at her, his face an inch away.

"If the world sees us-"

She smirked, cutting him off.

"Then we'll just keep it a secret until I'm eighteen."

That was all he needed to know; he smiled and leaned in to brush his lips against hers softly, tenderly, as if should she be treated any other way, the dream would end and he'd wake up alone and cold and _heartbroken_.

Rita sighed softly into the kiss, falling backwards onto the bed and bringing him down onto her, pressing them together. She stroked the stubble on his chin, as tenderness disappeared and passion kicked in, deciding that she liked the feel of the short rough hairs against her skin - but he took her arms in one hand and held them together by the wrists above her head. She groaned softly, stifling a moan and arching into him as his other hand moved cautiously under her shirt, caressing her hip up to her ribs, just below her bra.

Their lips moved against each other's passionately in raw desire, full of need and want and desperation and _love_, and momentarily Rita felt scared of this new feeling, strong and powerful and reducing her thoughts to nothing but _Raven, Raven, Raven_, but it felt _so right, so what was there to be afraid of?_ And as he ravaged her lips with his own, Raven himself relished in the fact that he was hers and she was his, and _no one_ had ever captured her heart like he did.

Noisily, messily, and unwilling, they broke apart, panting to catch their breath and needing to stop before they got carried away. Rita blushed furiously, feeling exposed and becoming fully aware of the hand gripping her wrists and the one under her shirt. He gave a breathy chuckle, letting her arms go and rolling to lie beside her. He wrapped one arm around her, the other coming up to brush her cheek lightly with a thumb. Rita blushed even further as he left a lingering, tender kiss on her cheek.

"I love you, Rita," he said softly with a smile, staring into her eyes, because she was strong and she was fragile, and so was he for needing her to hear the words. Actions could speak for themselves well enough, but little words and tender moments made everything all that much stronger - and he wanted to get through to her just how much he needed her - because he was afraid one day she'd wake up and wonder what the _hell_ she was doing with an old man like him. "Always will."

Unable for her face to heat up more, Rita looked away, then buried her head under his chin and into his chest. She muttered into his shirt, "_shut up, that's embarrassing_," followed by an incredibly quiet, meek "_... love you, too..._" before pressing her face deeper into his clothes.

And his smile widened, because no one else had heard those words from her, and maybe no one else _would_. And to hell with the world and whatever would be thrown their way.

They had a whole lifetime ahead of them.

_xxx_

Just a couple words shy of 5100. Wow, it feels like my writing has gotten a _liiiiiiiittle_ bit better since I finished Dreams of Nightmares.

This chapter's topic was one of the few I had in my mind when I wrote the first one. I'd been dying to write it, but then at the same time, I was dreading it, because I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to play out.

Then when I started writing this chapter, I realized, hey, maybe this would be better if I made it a full-blown multi-chapter story... but then, regarding my laziness, I said _screw it_ and just meshed everything together. Like the Alexei bit. That kind of went down the drain, but I don't care because this isn't about Alexei.

That was kind of my first attempt at _some_ kind of make out scene because I was reading the reviews of Miscellaneous, and I realized that practically all of them were saying that most scenes were comical. I thought to myself, I didn't want it to seem like Raven and Rita could only be together as a constantly comedic couple, because I'm a sucker for romance and romance comes from _everything_, not just funny scenes and not-so-good-fluff scenes.

Also, I can be a bit of a sucker for high school settings sometimes. Vesperiaaa, why couldn't you have given the xbox players the school uniform costumes? ;A; And everything else that was awesome in the PS3 port not in the xbox...


	5. Elegance

_She had the elegance of a horse, but that didn't really matter.  
><em>

_x_

Rita wasn't the most elegant person in the world. She was nit-picky and violent, often sarcastic with biting retorts and a sharp tongue. Her hair was short and chopped off, often done by herself, though lately it was getting long - she was going to have to do something about it soon, but she couldn't find those _damn scissors_ - her clothing was covered in various clip-on objects like notebooks and pens, and her boots didn't match. The way she walked was everything _but_ graceful, not like Estelle and her dainty, light footsteps, or like Judith and the way she sauntered.

But that didn't quite matter to her, anyway, because she was a researcher and damn proud of it. Researchers didn't have the _time_ to act like nobles and play dress up and wear make up, or go to dances and get _grabbed_ by creepy old men with sweaty hands. There was simply too much work to do, and now that blastia were out of function, making electricity a sustainable, wide-scale energy source just made things even more complicated.

That was fine with her, though, because research was her life. _Embrace knowledge, discover the unfound, solve the unknown, blah blah blah_ - those Krityan scholars made science sound so _mystical_, it was annoying. Science and magic were _different_ because science was evidence, despite not really being able to explain why _magic made stuff appear out of nowhere_. But Rita didn't care, because both were her forte and it wasn't as important. For now.

Being a scientist and a mage was what she lived for, but sometimes, secretly, she wondered what it was like to wear a gown and sparkling jewelry, to have her hair done in a beautiful fashion and just a touch of gloss on her lips. Some earrings were nice, small dangly ones that captured light in all the right ways, or little crystal studs - but those ones she'd seen some women wear, those _giant hoops_ were just... ugh. Rita often wondered what it would be like if she just _stuck her hand through them_ because she just _knew_ they would go through without even touching the metal. But still, to have holes put _intentionally_ in your ears was just... _ugh._ No thanks.

Sometimes it seemed like everyone had forgotten, but Rita was a girl, and she could have a girly thoughts too.

But girly thoughts from her were just _weird_, so she never mentioned anything or even tried to indicate it. Acting like a girl just wasn't normal for her, and if she brought anything up, she was _sure_ everyone was going to look at her weirdly (except maybe Estelle and Judith, because they'd probably smile and stuff her into a big, puffy dress once they were in Zaphias... and giant puffy dresses were the _worst_). As if she didn't get enough of that from the people in Aspio...

So what if she worked hard and wore clothes that were _stylishly_ mismatched? She could have her own hobbies that didn't involve science and blastia, couldn't she? It was what fashionistas _did_ - they designed stylish clothes and (or) wore them.

... But that little fashionista bit of hers was a _secret_, because why would anyone else need to know that she liked to sketch outfit designs and dresses in between her notes in that little pocket book she had clipped on to the front of her shirt? No one had the guts to take her things without asking (except maybe Raven and Karol, but they were morons anyway), and the movements of her pencil would have just looked like she was drawing something like blastia, or a new battery.

There was that one time, though, when she'd woken up on the Fiertia and, after an hour without noticing it was gone, had Raven tap her on the shoulder with her little book. _"Ya dropped it,"_ he'd said, and she demanded to know whether he'd looked inside it. Of course, he said no, but Rita wasn't satisfied with that (because he had to lie to have a _whole other identity_) and had threatened him until he cowered in a corner between crates, hands up in defense, crying, _"I really didn't look through it! Really!"_

She chose to believe him, then ignore him, because maybe he'd had enough, and maybe the way he looked made her want to give him a kiss and tell him he looked pathetic. It was weird and it was foreign, and she found herself wanting to do it more often - and it just pissed her off even more because it _wouldn't go away_.

But then sometimes he would look at her weirdly and she would look away and fiddle with her clip-on notebook, and she'd remember he once had it without her noticing. There would be that little nagging voice at the back of her mind, whispering _your secret's out, Rita, and he's going to embarrass you and tell the whole world you're just like one of those noble girls-_

And yet she did (mostly) nothing to him, because she wasn't entirely made of _salt and pepper and everything mean_ (_sugar, spice, everything nice_, nope, didn't sound like her at all, that was all Estelle), and she was afraid she would act on that one damn impulsive urge. Ignore, ignore, ignore, maybe it'll just go away-

-But alarm bells were sounding in her head when a few months later, Estelle had sent her a letter inviting her (or, rather, practically _telling _her to come) to Zaphias. Something about a big celebration, a ball, dancing, and a _very_ nice dress that had a _beautiful_ design on it, with matching shoes and accessories waiting for her in her room at the castle.

When she arrived there, however, the ringing bells were full-blown _wailing sirens_ when the dress lying on her bed looked _exactly_ like the one she'd drawn in her notebook some time ago, down to the design's smallest detail.

_"Where... did you get this?"_ Rita had hesitantly asked, wondering what the hell was going on and why was that gown there-

-And Estelle had beamed, _"One of our Captains had the design copied down; he had our most expensive and talented seamstress tailor it - he said it was designed just for you to wear on your birthday! Isn't that lovely?"_ The princess had clapped her hands together, and all Rita could do was give a flustered nod because _what the hell_ did people say in situations like these? And... her birthday? It already came up again? What was the big deal, anyway? And she was _so_ going to kill Raven for this-

Or... maybe she wouldn't, after seeing her reflection in the full length mirror of her room. She... actually looked like some kind of _noble_ (although she didn't quite mind, because she wasn't a _noble_, she was _Rita Mordio_) and it was so foreign to her, seeing someone who looked like a_ real girl_ staring back at her.

It was awkward, standing up on the dais of the ballroom and having both Ioder and Estellise announce that the whole event was in honor of the birthday of Rita Mordio, _who was a great friend, a saviour of the world, and a brilliant researcher,_ but the fashionista in her hummed with pride when the whispers floated up, saying _that gown is beautiful, it's gorgeous, I must know where she had it tailored, who could have designed it?_

And the attention was... kind of nice, too...

_..._ Except when Raven, or Schwann, rather, dressed in his captain's uniform and bowing gentlemanly, had asked for the first dance (because he was _damned_ if he won't going to be the first one to dance with her) and she'd said yes, stepping on his feet with the grace of a _horse_ for the first half of the dance (Estelle would later tell her she looked absolutely wonderful, graceful, even, you couldn't even tell she made any mistakes - _pfffft, yeah right_).

To her disappointment, it didn't even hurt his metal-plated boots. _Damn_.

And then they had danced a second time, a third (finally with a touch of smoothness on Rita's part), then a fourth, before Schwann had decided that maybe he wasn't being fair and shouldn't hog her all to himself. He bowed and she curtsied and then he'd kissed her hand (and he let it linger too long, _damn, now was his time to escape_) and she almost slapped him, but then he disappeared behind the crowd of well-dressed nobles, leaving Rita in the hands of Ioder (because he was royalty and she just wasn't allowed to deny him a dance like that), which gave the captain plenty of time to run away.

That didn't matter anyway, because she found him the next morning, hiding in his room, and she shook him around and smacked him here and there before he cut her off with a kiss and she had kissed back.

And Rita didn't care if she was elegant or not because she was Rita Mordio, genius mage and brilliant researcher, and she had to find out why she fell in love with a moron like Raven, like Schwann, and maybe she wanted to find out why he loved her too.


	6. Flowers

_Even in the worst of days, he always found a way to leave flowers on her grave._

_x_

He remembers extending one arm out weakly through his blurry vision to reach for her. The blast had flung them away a great distance over the barren, rocky land, leaving them coughing and half-blind, with dust in their throats and torn clothing and scraped knees and elbows. Smoke had billowed out all around them, and loose rocks clattered along the ground as she moved slowly to sit up. He remembers the way she grimaced, then smiled at him as if everything was going to be all right.

He remembers the sickening sound of the arrow piercing right through her chest, puncturing the blue armour that gave little resistance, and reappearing before her eyes. He remembers crying out desperately, calling out her name in a weak, choking sob.

He remembers her coughing, the blood trickling down her chin and blooming like bright red flowers in her hands. And still, before her eyes slipped shut and she toppled over, she smiled at him like everything in the world was going to be okay.

That was his last memory of her before the world went black.

_x_

He always found the time to buy a bouquet, or to pick some wildflowers growing in the sparse, dry land. Every year, he found time in the warmth of spring, her favourite summer, the cool of autumn, or even during the freezing winters, because on Mt. Temza there was no change in seasons - only dry, humid heat burned through the land. What the temperature was in Zaphias didn't matter.

Chancing upon the battleground-graveyard with Yuri's crew had been unexpected and coincidental. Having the fire lily - her favourite flower - on hand at that moment was absolute pure luck. Or was it fate? No, it couldn't be, but...

Schwann Oltorain was a man who didn't quite believe in either. In his mindset, whatever happened in the world happened. There was no reason to why he lived and she died, or why he was the one picked to be an example of the living dead. There was no luck to up the odds, no bad luck when you walked under ladders, no backs to break when the roads of the Lower Quarter were full of so many cracks that you couldn't do much but step on them-

But then again, he'd never had a mother to begin with.

Raven of Altosk, however, was a man who believed in both. He'd thank Lady Luck when a particularly good throw of dice or a hand of cards put things in his favour. He'd scowl and curse his bad luck when he lost all winnings in a night. He would look at a man like Schwann and say it could have been fate that brought him back or simply pure luck. Either or could have been the case, but Raven did not dwell on it because most times he would let life go on as if nothing phased him.

Like a turning leaf in the wind.

Rita, of course, called him stupid for having such a flimsy character, and sometimes, he would agree. But he never reproached her blunt - often mistaken as rude - curiosity at what happened between him and the young beautiful woman he once loved, and then loved some more, because he was almost certain she'd never lost someone in her life like he had.

And he was right.

But in the years that followed and after the events that happened, Rita never held it against him when he continued to leave flowers on her grave. Sometimes she went with him and paid her own respects. Other times she couldn't go; Tarqaron was one of the most mysterious places on Terca Lumereis, and since its reappearance, research would always pull her away.

Other times, he wanted to be alone.

She never minded, though, because she knew how he worked, and she was sure that he would still come back to her.

And he still does.

_x_

He remembers the way her eyes shone like beautifully cut gems, made absolutely perfect with the most precision and care in the world. Nothing and no one could get in her way. Her determination was fierce and her will was strong, and nothing could break her.

Her hands were covered in callouses and scars and burns, but he remembers how soft they felt when they fit perfectly in his hands. He remembers the way she worked, sharp and precise, with no room for error.

He remembers all the sweet spots she had; her sides that were always ticklish, the one little place between her neck and shoulder that would leave her senseless and wilting in his arms, the tiny scars across her arms and across her legs, the few darker lines that criss-crossed on her torso and her back that were _all his fault_ because he'd kidnapped the princess so very long ago.

He can still feel how gently her hands caressed the blastia in his chest, still feels the warmth from her fingertips even though he hasn't felt her hands in what feels like a lifetime.

He remembers the way he would chuckle like a man who knew he was to die, every time she told him that she was going to fix him, that she was fixing him, that she _fixed_ him, every time she said he was going to live to be old and stupid and decrepit. _I'm tellin' ya, hon, yer work is as good as ever, but this is one tickin' time bomb ya can't stop_, he told her, and look where he is now and _damn, damn, damn_, it should have been him and not her.

He knows there's nothing he can do. He knows the feeling; he's been through it before, and it hurts and hurts and _hurts_ until it leaves him a sobbing mess in the dark of the night, choking on whispers of her name and he doesn't even care because _she's gone, gone, gone_.

He remembers the day Tarqaron fell.

_x_

There are days when Raven stops at the local market to buy freshly cut flowers. Globes of amaranth. Heliotrope. Marigold. He chats amiably with the florists and marketers, but if you ask them, they'll tell you there's always a sad smile on his face when he comes around.

_Immortal love. Devotion. Pain and grief. _

If she were here, though, she'd scoff at him. Why would he waste his money on _flowers _when he could just pick them from all over the place?

Some days, he passes through the markets and into the fields or forests, where he finds blooming flowers and searches for the right ones. White clover. Gorse. Blue violets.

_I promise. Love in all seasons. Faithfulness._

Every time, though, he makes a stop in the noble quarters of Zaphias, where the prices go higher and he never cares because she deserves the best whether she would have liked it or not. Cypress. Forget-me-nots. Primrose. Fire lilies.

_Death, mourning, despair, sorrow. True love. Eternal love. Strength and fire and passion._

_x_

When the flowers are spread across the grave and the sun is setting, Raven sits by her tombstone and unstoppers the sake.

_One for her and one for him._

He holds his sake dish to the air and whispers into the sky.

"_Here's to you, Rita."_

He drinks.

* * *

><p>AN: August 1, 2012, replaced Fighter with Flowers.

Small tribute to Victor who, after a long battle with cancer, passed away early this morning. I never knew you well, but you were an amazing person. We'll all miss you.

Rest in peace, and happy uke-playing up there.


	7. Growth

_It was the kind of growth she never cared for._

_x_

Rita glared at her reflection in her bedroom's full-length mirror.

Why did this have to happen? It wasn't _her _fault that she'd-

No, complaining never made things go away. It never helped. Especially not something like-

Rubbing her forehead tiredly, Rita stopped her train of thoughts and tried to think of something else, closing her eyes and groping blindly for the pile of bandages on the wooden floor.

So, everyone was gathering together for Karol's sixteenth birthday at the Yumanju Inn. That wasn't a bad idea, because personally, Rita sort of kind of _maybe_ had positive feelings about going to the steaming hot springs.

_Strong_ positive feelings. But that wasn't important.

What was important was that she would get to relax in the hot, milky mineral waters and ease out all the tension in her shoulders and little cricks in her neck. She could let her frustration wash away and drift off while she bathed in the steaming water, breathing in the kind of smell only nature could produce though the wonderful hot springs of Yumanju.

But she would have to wait until the others were sleeping before she could allow herself such a luxury, because this... this... this _horrible nuisance_ was on her and it was just... _festering there_ and _in the way_.

Rita paused in the middle of bandaging her chest tightly to glare at the mirror again-

_Dammit_, these were the bandages that she'd spilled red ink on! Where were her other- no! She didn't have enough time! The others were going to get here any minute now - these were clean, anyway! So what if there was a little (a _lot_) of ink on them?

Finishing up hurriedly, Rita reached over and pulled her regular red-and-black shirt over her head. And so what if it was incredibly hot ouside? It wasn't her fault that Karol's birthday was in August; she didn't have anything else that could cover her freakish-

_Augh!_

Rita stomped the floor in frustration and reached for the letter from Estelle sitting on top of her dresser_ -_

_Dear Rita, how are you? I hope you are doing well. I'm sending you this letter to invite you to Karol's_...

- only to hastily try to hide it for no particular reason she could think of - one of those annoying instinctive reactions that make things feel awkward when there's nothing _to_ hide anyway- as she heard heard the front door open and bounding footsteps running across the floors.

Not even five seconds later, her door opened and she was caught up in a tight squeeze where all she could see was green.

"Ah, Rita, my darling, _have you missed me_~?" Raven cried out dramatically as he spun her around in his hold. "It's been _so long_ since we've seen each other, my dear, and I have missed you so- _ow ow owwww! I give! I give!_" Rita fumed furiously as he set her down, rubbing his sides tenderly with a wince. "Aw, geez, did ya really have to pinch me so hard, girl?"

"What the _HELL_ is wrong with you, old man?" She screeched at him, striking his gut and blushing heavily. "You can't just- what- you- my doors were locked! _Locked!_ Get the hell out!" She grabbed him by the collar and threw him out her bedroom door.

"_Owww_," he moaned, lying on the floor. A boot nudged him over onto his back, the sound of muffled snickering floating through the air.

"I told you she was going to kill you, old man." Yuri said behind his hand, fighting the urge of laughing out loud. Behind him, Karol was doubled over, trying not to make a sound as he laughed.

"Yeah, Raven," he said between gasps and laughter. "Man, I thought you were dumb, but not _that_ dumb."

"Hey!" The archer on the floor cried out defiantly. "That's mean! I only wanted ta _scare_ her a little, that's all!"

"Yeah, and you got your butt whooped too," the teenage boy retorted with a grin.

"And why didn't you stop him?" Rita huffed at them, hands on hips and willing her blush to go down. Why the _hell_ did he have to embarrass her like that? The stupid idiot!

"We tried," Yuri chuckled, "but he just wouldn't listen."

"Yeah," Karol added, "you should have seen the look on Estelle's face when Raven picked your lock_._ She looked like the end of the world was gonna come around again."

"Is that so," the nineteen-year-old glared at the body on the floor. "Picked my locks, huh? I'm surprised an idiot like you can actually do that."

"Aw, give me more credit, hun," Raven cooed, rolling around to lie on his stomach. He looked up at her. "I'm not such a useless guy as ta not be able ta know how to open a woman's lock-"

She gave him a swift kick.

"_Oh, the misery,_" he wailed, clutching his shoulder. First a punch, then a kick. What was next, a body slam?

Yuri just snorted and jerked a thumb behind him. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, grabbing her bag she'd prepared the night before. Then, using Raven's back as a stepping stool (Karol was _taller_ now, and it was kind of weird), Rita reached up to ruffle Karol's hair.

Or give him a hard noogie. He couldn't tell.

"Happy birthday, you damn brat." She walked past him, bag slung over her shoulder in a haughty fashion.

"Yep, that's Rita for you." He grinned.

"My poor back..." Raven moaned.

_x_

"Are you sure you're not going to join us in the baths, Rita?" Estelle tilted her head slightly, one hand up to her chest. She was on her way to the baths, wearing one of the inn's yukatas, pink and floral. Judith stood behind her with a knowing smile.

"Not right now, sorry. I'm... not really feeling so great. I mean, we're here for a few days, right?" Rita brushed her off apologetically, scratching her neck.

"You're sure I can't heal you?" Estelle asked with concern.

Rita just shook her head. "I'm just a little tired. You can go ahead, don't worry about me."

Estelle didn't seem to be deterred, so Judith cut in. "I think Rita just needs a little bit of sleep. You know how busy she's been with her work lately."

It seemed to do the trick, and soon enough Rita gave a sigh of relief.

_x_

It hadn't taken long for Estelle and Judith to fall asleep after returning from the hot springs. Even the males of their group had returned to their own nearby rooms and weren't even making any noises.

Perfect.

Quietly, Rita gathered her things and tip-toed out of the room, sliding the door shut gently behind her. Making her way past Yuri's room, Rita trod through the lobby and into the main showers.

She unwrapped her bandages, dropping them by her towel and turning on the shower. Hot water was nice, but not as nice as the baths. Hurriedly, she scrubbed herself off, eager to dip herself in the hot mineral waters of the hot springs.

Shutting off the water, Rita wrapped her towel around herself, then stared at her bandages. Since she was taking her yukata along with her to put at the side... well, it wouldn't hurt to take them a long, anyway. She bundled them up in her hands, then made her way down to the hot springs.

With a sigh of pleasure, Rita eased herself into the hot, milky waters of the Yumanju hot springs, setting her things off to the side. She rubbed her neck slowly, working out the tension in her muscles.

You just couldn't beat hot springs in the middle of the night with bright stars twinkling in the sky.

Sitting down away from the entrance and leaning against a large rock, she tilted her head back and closed her eyes, relaxing and thinking about trivial things. Things like how the tree of Halure still protected the people, even though the barrier no longer functioned, and how the oasis of Mantaic was still uncontaminated-

No, that wasn't trivial at all.

She thought about her travels with everyone, wondering what things would be like if she'd never tagged along in their rag-tag group. Was there someone else who maybe could have helped save the world like she did?

When the hell were Yuri and Estelle going to get married?

How the hell did Karol get so tall in such a short time?

How did Judith know everything?

Why the hell did Raven have so much muscle?

... Where the hell was Repede?

Wait... Rita blinked in horror at her thoughts. "So much muscle"? Where the hell did that come from? He was just an idiot-

A loud yawn cut through the air, and Rita froze, terrified. She peered over her conveniently well-placed rock that his her from view, only to see Raven's back as he was sliding the door shut. What the hell was that bastard doing in the women's-

Dread filled her mind as she read the sign above the door.

_Mixed Bath_

Maybe it had been because it was in the middle of the night, or maybe it was because she had been so eager to get into the hot springs that she'd entered the_ mixed_ baths without realizing it.

Well, _shit._

She dropped back down behind the rock. How the hell did she forget that he normally bathed when no one was around to see his blastia?

Raven covered his chest with a hand as he heard movement in the water. Someone was already here? He glanced around, spotting a folded towel and yukata near him. That was a woman's, definitely.

_Wasn't Rita wearing that earlier today?_

"Izzat you, Rita?" Raven whispered into the air, hand dropping slightly from his blastia. He could see ripples forming from a distance behind a large rock, but no person.

There was a moment of distraught silence before a voice hissed out, "_Go away, old man."_

Raven gave a small _pffft,_ taking his towel off and stepping into the water. The area Rita occupied wasn't even _near_ the entrance, so if she went after him he'd have a head start. "Hey, now, this is the mixed bath, Rita darlin'. If ya wanted some privacy, you should've gone to the _ladies'_ bath._"_

"_Shut up_," he could hear her scowling - probably red, too. "I thought this _was_ the female baths until _you_ stepped in, idiot_-_ what are you doing? Don't get in the water, go away!"

He put his towel down beside hers. "How can ya tell I'm in the water, Rita? Y'know, if ya really wanted ta see my handsome body, you could've just asked instead of peekin' at me like-" What was that red cloth poking out from in between the folded robe?

"I'm not _looking_ at you, idiot! I can hear you moving in the water! How am I supposed to get out if you're still here?" It was sharp and deadly, with a hint of being frantic and terrified.

Raven stared at the length of bandage in his hands, alarmed. Why were they stained with red? Was she injured somewhere?

Rita risked a peek at him from her hiding spot. What was he... _No!_ Those were _hers_!

"G-get away from my stuff!" She screeched at him, head rising a little higher. Panic was creeping up on the back of her mind. "Don't touch that!"

He shook his head and lifted his hand, turning around. Her head was poking out from the top of the rock. "Rita, are you hurt somewhere?"

"_No!_ I'm _not_! Put that down and go away!" Her voice was getting louder by a few notches. Her hands gripped the uneven edges of the stone tightly.

"Then why do you have bandages, and why are they covered in blood?" He was slowly getting frustrated, hearing the frantic plea in her voice. _What was she hiding?_

"That... that's none of your business! And that's not blood, that's ink!"

"Riiiight," Raven snorted. "You were wearing ink-covered bandages. Come on, Rita, I'm not _that_ dumb! Why the hell would you be wearing bandages in the first place anyway, huh?"

"I'm serious!" She was almost to a shout, now, hands clenched into fists. "It's ink! _Put it down and go away_!"

"And I'm a giant octopus." Raven retorted. "If you don't tell me what's going on, Rita, I'm going to come over there, _regardless_ of whether you are wearing something or not." He began to wade through the chest-deep water.

"I'm serious, you idiot! Go away!" She tried to glare him to death, but it wasn't working. Dropping back down behind the rock, Rita looked for any means of escape.

There was _nothing._

"Aha! There you are!" Raven said triumphantly, spotting her back.

Startled, the nineteen-year-old turned around. How the hell did he reach her so-

Time seemed to stop as Raven stared at her chest for all of two seconds before a thin line of blood trickled down his nose.

_"Augh! FIREBALL!_" She screamed, hurling a bright ball of fire at him. He ducked into the water and Rita swam around him as fast as she could to reach her things. She was just... almost...

_There!_

With her arms, Rita lifted herself up from the water... before a pink-haired princess slid the paper door open and made a _very_ distraught noise in the back of her throat, staring at her. Rita froze.

"Rita..."

Estelle looked in betrayal at the brunette's bust that rivaled Judith's.

"... What did you _do_?"

Rita sank down rapidly into the milky waters and covered her chest with her hands, wishing she was _anywhere_ but here.

_x x x_

A/N: Because I chose to give Rita a slow, embarrassing puberty, meaning let's just assume she could PMS in the game but not have a rack. Yet. And I'm half-assing this one again because I'm bad with hot spring descriptions and this was in my head since C. Also, somehow, this ended up being a little more crack-y than I intended, considering how most of it was written between 12 AM and 3 AM. Um... oh well :'D Updates will get _absolutely definitely slower_.

Did you notice how I had Raven wearing his green outfit in the beginning? I know, this is totally irrelevant. Just rambling.

School is starting up on Tuesday the sixth. Oh man, high school graduation, here I come ToT... Also, just because I like to talk about myself, I got my ears pierced for the first time yesterday. The painnnn, hahaha.

Last bit: I love reviews. You reviewed? I love you. You're reviewing right now? I love you. You're going to review? I love you. Because I am a review-whore and every one makes me squeal on the inside. A lot._  
><em>


	8. Hide

_She was never the type to run and hide, but this was an exception._

_x_

When she saw his face amongst the loud vendors and haggling customers, a chill had crept up Rita's spine. Part of her didn't recognize what the feeling was when she froze on the spot - not even when, during that half second of _too long_, his eyes raised and met hers.

The other part of her figured it out the instant she turned around and ran away.

It was the same feeling she'd felt a handful of times before, like when Schwann had held the tip of his sword so close to her throat, just barely touching, listening to her breath hitch as tears fell from her eyes and just _waiting_ - until Judith had kicked him away so fiercely she was certain the Krityan had cracked one or two of his ribs.

That was the same fear she felt when she watched the slab of rock nearly crush him in Baction, only for him to attempt to sacrifice himself for to save them-

But at the same time, this was weird and foreign because it was still _different_. Fear made her heart pound heavily and adrenaline rush through her veins. _This_ did the same thing, only it left her with extra nervous fluttering in her stomach.

Rita stumbled around crates filled with fruit, running past couples and families and elderly old ladies with baskets on their arms. Warning bells of danger sounded in the back of her head as she glanced back to see a flash of purple disappear.

"Hey!" A woman shouted as her shoulder struck hers.

"Watch it!" A man muttered, giving her back the stink eye.

Panting, Rita turned sharply around a corner, running down a long winding alleyway between an inn and a cafe. It branched out into multiple paths: some that ended and some that lead a person back to where they started. Rita prayed to herself that he would get lost along the way. A crude drawing of Yuri's face flashed by - one of his old wanted posters from three years ago, why it was still up she had no idea - signalling that the exit was near and her house was just _that much_ closer.

Emerging into the sunlight, Rita wound her way around a maze of streets and dirt roads. There was the faint patter of footsteps a distance behind her, and her heart pounded heavily, blood rushing in her ears. Her house was just... almost...

_There!_

She burst through her front door, thankful for the one day she _didn't_ lock it, and immediately locked it behind her before dashing up the stairs and into her cluttered bedroom. Shoving her racks of books and tools out of the way, she crept under a table and tried to calm her thundering heart.

Maybe she could relax a little. She'd replaced her lock three times already - and this time it was more than just a-

The sound of her front door opening registered in her ears. _Damn it!_ How many times was that bastard going to pick her locks until he was satisfied? Rita huddled into a tighter ball as she heard soft footsteps on the wooden floor.

"_Ritaaa, where are youuu?_" Raven sang quietly, slowly into the open space. Rita just barely squeaked as her breath hitched in her throat. Somewhere in the house, there was the sound of a nearby door opening. "_Could you be in here~?_"

Rita shuddered as his voice rang huskily in the air. The footsteps came closer and she stiffened.

_She forgot to lock the door_.

The knob turned so slowly that Rita almost jumped out of her hiding place to scream "_NO!"_ and shove herself against the door. It creaked open and Rita covered her mouth with her hands, fighting hard not to breathe, hoping her loud, resonating heartbeat wouldn't give her away. From the tiny space between her things and the floor, she could see his boots step forward and stop _right in front of her_. They faced her direction...

... and then they moved again. "_Guess you're not in here, either."_ The door closed, and Rita heard him move on to the next room. She waited a minute before she heaved a sigh of relief, bringing a hand over her chest.

"_Maybe she went out through the back door..."_ She heard him say.

Yes, that's right, Rita thought, go outside; I'm not in here. There was the sound of shuffling and footsteps thudding softly down the stairs. The back door creaked open and shut noisily.

"_Rita!"_ Raven called loudly outside. _"Where are ya, girl?"_

Nowhere near you, she retorted to herself. Slowly, she crawled out from her hiding place, shoving books out of the way and letting them fall onto the floor. She was lucky this time, but he'd seen her _and_ entered her house. She was in trouble now.

How was she going to get away from him? Rita muttered to herself under her breath as she turned the knob of the lock on her door. It wasn't _her _fault that he-

Suddenly, an arm wrapped around her waist, trapping her arms tightly together. Raven pulled her flush tightly against his torso.

"_Found ya_," he grinned predaciously down at her from behind as she blushed hotly, squirming in his grip. "_My, oh, my, what am I gonna do with ya?"_ His other hand lifted to tilt her chin up. "_What does a naughty girl like you deserve after teasin' me with that sexy cat outfit of yours?_"

"I didn't do anything like-" she hissed, glaring into his eyes. Raven kept her chin tilted up, but dipped his head down to kiss the expanse of her exposed neck. "Nngh... stop that," she said breathlessly, wilting into him as he sucked on the soft flesh between neck and collarbone.

"_Oh, but you did,"_ he whispered huskily, leaving a vivid red mark on her skin. A warm breeze fanned in through her open window, rustling the leaves of the tree outside. "_Runnin' around, wearin' those cat ears just ta get my attention like a damn tease..."_

"I didn't-" His lips meshed with hers with wanton need at an awkward angle, and she squeezed her eyes shut instinctively. "_Nn_..."

"_I think you need to be punished_," their lips parted noisily, his grip on her tightening greedily.

Rita just groaned softly as his fingers ghosted over her skin.

**_x x x_**

A/N: Sex happens. Yes. Yes it does. My Rita likes kink, _hahaha_. I think she'd be the type to like being dominated rather than be one of those freaky dominatrixes, because she can't always be in control. And Raven is dirty and totally _absolutely_ the only one for her. Okay, enough awkward talk. This whole thing was kind of supposed to be fast-paced... ish. I think. And if it's confusing, it's kind of obviously post relationship issues. I also obviously did not spend copious amounts of time skimming over it to check for errors and flow problems. Rushed work, because I just want to go NOPE I'M DONE WITH THIS HERE HAVE SOMETHING TO READ -update-.

I've got something somewhere that's totally making me go "aw shet maybe I shouldn't have put that there" because it's totally a spoiler (I'll give you a hint: it's not in here), but what's done is done. Um... Yes. Homework sucks. Considering how I can only write on weekends, I'll begin writing chapter 3 of Blast Heart either tomorrow (Sunday) or next weekend, and it probably won't be updated until.. nearing the end of October, or something. And then I will try to update this one week after that.


	9. Images

_These were the kinds of images he was never meant to see.  
><em>

_x_

He stared wordlessly, open-mouthed at the sheets of paper in his hands.

This was what Rita kept hidden in her 'secret drawer'?

_Flip. Flip._

No _way_.

_Flip._

That... was cool_._

_Flip.  
><em>

... Well, that was awkward...

_Flip. Flip._

He stroked his chin, nodding in approval. Not bad, not bad at all! That was one handsome captain!

_Flip_.

Hey! They were dancing in this one! Look, you could even see the blush on-

_Flip._

A wedding? Really? So Rita was your average, dreaming teenager after all!

_Flip. Flip_.

... Okay, scratch the earlier awkward one. _This_ one was awkward. But it was in good taste. Hm.

... Could a person really _bend_ like that?

Moreover, could _he?_

... Yes. Yes he could. The old man still got it!

(Oh god his _back_-)_  
><em>

_Flip_.

(Just kiddin'.)

_Flip._

Who knew Rita could have a perverted side, too? But, then again, she was always calling him out for being a pervert.

After all, it takes one to know one, right~?

_Flip.  
><em>

Oooh, a violin! How did she know he-?

_Flip_.

Piano this time! _Awesome_.

_Flip._

... Okay, another awkward one.

_Flip. Flip_.

_Sexy._

_Flip_.

Rita sure was an artist.

_Flip._

Oh, she was a princess now, huh? And he was her knight in shining armour. He stroked his chin again. That would make in interesting story, now that he thought about it...

_Flip_.

Okay, that one was just plain old _inappropriate_.

... But he _liked_ it.

_Flip. Flip._

This... was an amazing watercolour painting. He was _so_ going to keep that one.

If Rita wanted it back, too bad for her~!

_Flip_.

"_Hey!_"

Ah, speak of the devil.

"Hello there, miss mage." Grin.

"Put that back!" Pink like Luluria petals. "Who said you could go through my stuff? I'm going to kill you!"

Red like roses. Leap and reach.

He held the sheets up high. "Never knew you were such a fan of the captain."

"S-shut up! Give those back!"

"Hmm... Nah~." His eyes scanned the page.

_Saved me outside of Aspio four years ago._ Dated on her fourteenth birthday. _Traveled on my own, ten years old. Monster tried to eat me. Too tired to fight; he killed it and took me to the city.  
><em>

She aimed for a punch, but he was faster, dancing around her and out the windowsill, up the tree and gone.

Rita stomped her foot, frustrated. "Get back here, you dirty old bastard!"

A call from the roof. "No~!"

_Don't know his name. Some captain of the imperial knights._

A hopeless sigh and blooming cheeks. Stupid too-high-above-the-ground roof.

She glanced around the room and paled.

Her other locked drawer... was open.

(_That was the one with her sketches of Rav-!_)

"Didn't know ya were such a fan of me, either!"

... _Dammit_.

**_x x x _**

A/N: Inappropriate and appropriate drawings of Schwann. And Rita. By Rita. Found by Raven. Something quick and _very_ different from the norm, all a mix of different writing styles and etc.

Rita is always going to have a tree outside a window _somewhere_, because Raven can't always use the front door. Hint hint. Also, I'm considering adding a tie-in with the whole "Schwann saving young Rita" thing, for a later chapter. Maybe I will, maybe not.

Little quick gift for (Canadian) Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving Day!

_Little minor edit after posting_: cause it was a bit unclear, I tweaked this by adding a line near the end, that's all. If you maybe didn't get it, the whole idea is that her schoolgirl-crush-sketches went from being Schwann to turning into Raven instead, and now he's looking at drawings of himself (and not Schwann). You know what I'm saying?


	10. Jigsaw

_It__ was __just__ this __one __little__ jigsaw__ puzzle __she__ could__ never__ get __right__._

_x  
><em>

Rita was the type of person who enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. It wasn't something she flaunted around, but it wasn't like it was a secret, either. Rita just... liked the way the pieces fit.

It was like a formula, or an equation. You were given an example with variables and numbers, and you would have the basic frame to plug each individual piece into the correct order or the correct spot. If it didn't work, you tried another piece, or another, or even fifty more until finally, _finally__**,**_ you got it right. Perfect. Just the way it was supposed to be.

In another sense, it was like fixing something... _broken__. _Something whole and right was... _out__ of__ place_ and _wrong_, and each little part needed to find its own place to belong.

It was the only sense of what other people called "normal" that Rita had in her life.

Dedicating her life to blastia, research, and science at her age wasn't something "normal people" did. Having people - strangers, neighbours, colleagues - call her a "freak of nature" because they couldn't understand why she could trust blastia but not them, the empire's finest mages, many of them brilliant only up to their own _asses_.

Growing up without parents, living alone without parents, not knowing what at least one of their faces _looked_ like - it wasn't normal to everyone else, but it was her kind of "normal".

Sometimes, she thought that maybe she could see what it was like to be like everyone else through the puzzles. Maybe she could see the difference between her world and the rest of the world. Maybe she could see what a family looked like, or what the ocean looked like, or what it was like to just have _someone_ in your life besides yourself.

Sometimes, she didn't. And sometimes, if she thought hard enough, maybe, maybe, she did.

And sometimes, it hurt.

But then, she was Rita _Mordio_. She couldn't get hurt from something so insignificant like a jigsaw puzzle. What was she doing, doing puzzles anyway? She had blastia to research! Experiments to conduct! Papers to write!

Theories to prove. Formulas to solve. Books to read.

… No one to talk to but her little plush cat hiding somewhere under the covers-

Back into the corner the puzzle box would go, with its little pieces scattered inside, rattling with every movement, and back to her life's research Rita would go, pencil in hand, pen in the crevice of her ear and her head, pocketbook clipped to her shirt, book in her lap, blastia around her neck.

Out it would come again after a few days, when Rita was tired of writing and formulating and listening to old geezers suggest terrible solutions for terrible ideas and no one to talk to but the little plush cat in the corner of the room.

And she would fix the little broken pictures over and over again, with no one to talk to but the little plush cat sitting in the empty puzzle box.

No matter how many times this one never looked right.

_x_

Rita was the type of person who enjoyed jigsaw puzzles without someone interfering. It was the kind of thing you did that was self explanatory and a one-person time-killer. You didn't need someone else's help. You didn't need to talk to anyone else.

You just needed yourself and the little plush cat on the top of your desk, because anyone else would try to boss you around.

This should go here. That should go there. No, not that. That. That's not right. You must be doing something wrong. You should do this instead of that. But maybe we should do this and harness the power of the blastia- _no__, __that __will__ ruin__ the __blastia__, __you__ idiot__, __don__'__t__ you__ dare __touch __that_- but Mordio, if you'd just listen- _I__'__m __listening__, __you__ moron__, __and __have __you __even __considered __any __consequences__? __If__ you __do __that__, __then_-

And no one would understand, _really_ understand, but the little plush cat on the third row of the bookshelf.

But Rita was fine with that, because all she needed was herself, the blastia, her research, and the little plush cat cradled tightly in her arms.

_x_

Rita was the type of person who enjoyed jigsaw puzzles, but she didn't have any, and the cabin of the Fiertia didn't have any - _no__ one_ had any - so all she had to do was to plan and convert, formulate and solve, organize and reorganize, whether it was in her head or on paper, that stupid old man's heart, or Estelle's own Rizomata variant.

Ink formed rapidly on sheets of paper as her hands moved quickly, writing in the jerky strokes of her messy scrawl. Spirit conversion, mana conversion, vitality conversion - all of them tricky little bastards - but Rita was damned if she let something like that defeat her.

Someone opened the cabin door. Rita gave a glare for a quarter of a second as papers tried to fly away from the unwelcome breeze. Raven smiled and shrugged sheepishly, even as she went back to her work without a second glance.

As long as he didn't bother her when she was trying to work, she didn't really care what he did. This one certain string of equations was frustrating her to no end - it should have been _simple_, but for some reason everything she tried just wasn't working.

She wished life wasn't so hectic at the moment. All she wanted to do at the moment was to lie on her stomach on the hard wood floors of her home and fit the little pieces of her jigsaw puzzles into the right spots. And it would be easy, because the image would already be on the box, and all she needed to do was put them in the right place.

Except for the one puzzle she had, where it was simply a blank box with jumbled pieces on the inside, with no image to refer to, and all the pieces were almost the same with the same blurry colours and the same blurry shapes.

Something warm and heavy landed on the top of her head, breaking Rita out of her thoughts. She nearly jumped, but Raven just smiled down at her, calloused hand on her head. He peered over her shoulder at the formula string even as she glared at him, then pointed with his other hand at the jumbled variables and misplaced equations.

She blinked and stared at it, working it through in her head and realizing he was right. She gave him an incredulous glance, crossing off her work and writing the solution.

The hand on her head ruffled her hair and she bristled at him. Raven simply grinned and shifted to the opposite side of the room where cushions and blankets lay - the side where they weren't in the way - then lay down to take nap, legs crossed, arms under his head.

Maybe it was the stress and maybe it was the worry, but somehow he managed to keep his mouth shut, and somehow she felt a little bit better with him just being there.

It was times like these, so few and so rare, that Rita found the old man tolerable.

She wondered briefly about the little plush cat in the corner of her room back in Aspio, but for now, she had work to do.

_x_

Rita was the type of person who enjoyed jigsaw puzzles. But that didn't mean she enjoyed them all the time.

This one - the only one salvaged from the remains of Aspio after Tarquron - was the one she could never get right. No matter how many times she did it, now matter how many sections she changed, she could never get the pieces to just fit and _work_.

It was frustrating and it was annoying, and there was a stupid old man in the corner of her room playing with something in his hands. From where she sat cross-legged, Rita could only glare at him in mild annoyance - mostly from the fact that she couldn't solve this one thing.

Maybe if she tried this piece here- no, that was worse. Over there? It looked weird. Maybe if she put this other piece over at- _augh_.

She huffed with annoyance and crossed her arms in frustration. She could see the old man glance up in the corner of her eye. Great, now he was probably going to open his mouth and-

He did nothing. Rita dropped her head into her hands, tired of guessing and trying and not getting it right anyway, even if she felt she was pretty damn close to making it complete. Maybe it would have helped if the image wasn't just a mass of blurry shapes and colours.

There was the sound of shuffling clothing. Bare feet _tmp_ed lightly on the floor. Rita ignored it until the shuffling stopped and a human furnace sat down next to her. Raven started moving the pieces of her puzzle around, and Rita looked up to give the archer a ready glare-

But the pieces were _fitting_. She stared at the jigsaw in front of her, watching as he moved the pieces around one-handedly.

"You've got it mostly right," he smiled, eyes still on the puzzle, still shuffling the pieces (that all looked far too much alike in shape and colour - each one just about had the same outline, actually) into the right places. "All you need is to switch these ones over here... and the ones over here." He pointed. "See? Looks like they're holding hands. And over here..." The last of the rearranging. "... is happiness."

Rita stared at the finished picture in front of her in partial wonder. Where each little shape and colour was obscure, she could make out the blurry forms of two people holding hands and smiling at each other, foreheads touching.

Raven put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in so that she was leaning against him. Rita blushed in embarrassment and reached for the little patched up plush cat in his hand, hugging it tightly in her arms and looking everywhere but at him.

Raven just chuckled and kissed her on the top of her head.

**_x x_ x**

Hooray! An update! Hopefully I meet your long awaited demands, because I swear just about every day I hardly do any homework because I have been hooked on writing and keep wanting to write. But then I never get to because I don't write in front of others (fanfiction is my little secret, my siblings don't know I write stuff x3). Anyways!

Plush cat = same one throughout. I swear, I'm just about always going to mention cats and Rita. I hope I don't overdo it, haha. But yes. Rita may be a violent girl with a holier-than-thou attitude at times, but I find her very fragile on the inside. I mean being a young girl and having a whole freakin' city be... I don't know, weirded/freaked out by you, having no family, etc etc. You can act tough, Rita, but you're still a teenage girl. Also, Raven can be smarter than you think, dear girl~

But on to my boring, uneventful life:

Tests on Tuesday, Wednesday, _and_ Thursday. Happy happy joy joy. Wondering if going to the grad Winter Semi Formal dinner/dance is worth it. Ticket deadlines are on November 24th. Still jobless. Bah. Me and my first world problems, haha.

Thanks for all the patience you guys have had waiting for me to update and everything. I love your reviews - even if I don't really ever respond to them - but when you give me your opinions I squee on the inside. A lot. Especially when I notice the number of favourites and alerts have gone up. I love you all~


	11. King

_For he was to be her king..._

_x_

When the two kingdoms of Zaphias and Dahngrest were promised an end to the war and times of peace, no one could have been happier than Estellise Sidos Heurrassein, princess of the former. All the bloodshed, the tears, every friend and family hurt by the death of a loved one or the injuries that left others crippled - so pointless and painful to watch.

That was why her agreement to the marriage between kingdoms was firm and resolute, without any hint of hesitation in the slightest. It didn't matter whether it would leave her miserable and heartbroken. As long as swords would stop clashing and people stopped dying, she didn't care.

Everything for the people.

Estellise sat on her lavish bed, staring at the floor as her best friend - her _sister_, if she could call her that - paced around the room.

"I don't get why you have to get _married_, Estelle. Can't you find an alternative way to bring peace? Trade routes. Exportable goods. Make someone _else_ go through this marriage. Why does it have to be you?" The brunette threw her arms out in frustration, rustling the small yellow flaps of her dress.

"You know I can't do that, Rita," the pink-haired princess replied, hands clasped in her lap. "I need to do this, otherwise the war will never end."

"But _why_?" Rita scowled, swinging an arm out again. "Weren't you waiting for that guildsman _Lowell_ to convince everyone on his side of the war to stop fighting? And then when that worked, the two of you-"

"I _know_ that, Rita." Estellise stared distraughtly at the open space in front of her and bit her lip. For the first time, Rita noticed her white knuckles. "But that can't happen anymore. It's..." The princess shook her head slowly. "This... This is the only way. The only way to stop all the unnecessary fighting. It's safe, a-and no one will get hurt."

"_You_ will get hurt. It's _not_ the only way." Rita crossed her arms, foot tapping. "I..." She looked up, determined to do _something_. "I was nothing before your family rescued me from the remains of Aspio after Tarquron _massacred_ everyone." She spat the words out venomously. "Everyone in this castle raised me like I was your family. I'm... I'm practically your _sister_, even if we're not blood-related. So I'm as close as they can get to royalty. They'll listen to me."

"What are you saying, Rita...?" Estellise refused to look up, shutting her eyes instead. _Please don't say it..._

"I'm going to stop the wedding." She glared. "And I'm going to stop the war. Somehow, someway, and people are going to stop dying."

"The wedding is in three weeks, Rita."

"I know. That's why I'm going to stop it."

Estellise shook her head again. "Nothing you say will convince them. It's decided, and it's my choice."

"Like hell it's your choice!" the brunette exploded. "You're supposed fix things on _our _side while Lowell fixes things on _his_ side! And then when that's all done, the two of you are supposed to marry each other and make him the stupid emperor of Zaphias, or- or give the title to _Ioder_ so-!" She put her fingers to her forehead, breathing deeply to calm her anger. When she glanced up a moment later, she froze.

Spots of grey were forming on the white fabric of the pink-haired princess's dress, rumpled in her lap.

"I know that, Rita. I know that... But it doesn't change anything." Her voice was shaky and uneven, but it didn't crack.

A princess was never to let her speech be hampered.

"I... I'm sorry, Estelle. I... I didn't mean to make you cry." Rita looked at her helplessly, but Estellise just shook her head and wiped her eyes with a weak smile. "It's just... Nothing ever happened because they _let_ things happen. Things happened because someone _did_ something about them. And I'm going to stop everything before it's too late."

_x_

"_I'm sorry, my lady, but the arrangements have been set. The contracts are in place and are undergoing review by the council."_

"_I refuse to believe it! Take me to the advisor. We will stop this war _without_ the marriage."_

"_... I'm sorry, my lady, but none of this can be done. There are twenty days until the wedding ceremony, and we must prepare for the treaty."_

"_You have got to be kidding me."_

"_... My lady?"_

"_Get out of my way!"_

"_M-my lady!"_

"_I said MOVE!"_

...

"_Your highness! Your highness!"_

"_Yes? What's the matter? You look pale..."_

"_It's- It's Lady Mordio! She's-"_

"_Oh, no... No, no, no."_

"_- She's gone! Her clothing, her spell books, a horse from the stable-!"_

_Twenty days to the wedding._

_x_

Rita exhaled and straightened her back, wiping the sweat off her brow. Her brown horse snorted, pawing at the grass beneath its hooves.

"I know, I know. I didn't think things through clearly."

It stared at her, unblinking.

"I _know_ it takes days to get to Dahngrest. That's why I brought you along." She dug through her leather pack and offered an apple, which the animal lipped on before eating. Still, it looked at her with an unblinking eye. "Shut up. I'm sending you home when we get three-quarters of the way to the border. It might take two, maybe even three days at the pace we've been going. I don't want to overwork you. Besides, everything about you just screams _Zaphias Castle_. If I want to live- if _you_ want to live - I have to make the rest of the trip on foot."

The horse snorted and flicked its tail.

"Since when could you understand _human_, anyway, you big oaf?" Rita placed her hands on the gelding's muzzle and leaned her head against it. "If I die on my way there - which I won't - then..." She closed her eyes as the animal puffed air in her face. "Thanks for everything, Damuron."

She stayed like that for another few moments before pulling away to roll up her black sleeves. She'd stopped by a lake to catch a rest; hopefully no one would find her.

No. No one _could_ find her. Magic sure was useful, especially when it was used to cover up her presence and her tracks.

She knelt low to cup a handful of water, splashing her face with the cool liquid: a refreshing feel compared to the burning anxiety she'd felt as she left the castle grounds. Beside her, Damuron dipped his head low to drink.

_Nineteen days to the wedding._

_x_

"_Now where's a lady like you goin' off to?"_

"_Who the hell are you?"_

"_Easy now, easy now, I ain't here ta hurt anybody. Look, empty hands, see? Please. Stop the glowin' thing."_

"_What is your name? Tell me."_

"_Pushy pushy." Finger in ear. Waggle. "Just a wanderin' fellow tryin' ta get away from the war."_

"_Your name or I blast you."_

"_Whoa, okay, okay. The name's Raven, at your service. It's dangerous fer a girl out here all by her lonesome."_

"_No last name?"_

"_Nope, none. May I ask yers now, ma'am?"_

"_No."_

"_Aw, c'mon. Where're ya headed? Zaphias is all the way behind ya, if yer tryin' ta stay away from the fightin'."_

"_... I'm going to Dahngrest."_

"_What? Why? Aren't ya somebody from Zaphias? They're gonna kill ya!"_

_Shake of the head. "I'm crossing the border to talk their king out of this marriage nonsense. This war will end some other way."_

"_Y'sure sound sure of yerself. What's it to you if the princess here gets married ta that ol' fogey?"_

"_This marriage will ruin her." Fiery eyes. "She won't show it, but the thought of it is already - already! - killing her on the inside!"_

"_How do you know?" Simple curiosity._

"_... I just do."_

"_Welp, luck must be on yer side, lady. I wanna end the war too, and I'm from Dahngrest myself- whoa whoa whoa! Glowin' thing! Away! Please!"_

"_Spy!"_

"_I ain't such a thing! I just said I was tryin' ta get away from the war! Look, I can lead you to the king. I don't want nothin' in return but fer all the fightin' ta stop. I'll walk in front of ya so you can blow me up if I do anythin' wrong."_

"_... Out of my way."_

"_I'm serious."_

"_..."_

_Spread arms. "... Go ahead. Kill me 'cause I'm from the other side. It'll never stop the war."_

_An internal struggle. "... Walk. And keep your hands where I can see them."_

_A triumphant grin. "Yes ma'am. May I have yer name now? We can't be travelin' mates if I don't know your name."_

"_... Rita."_

"_No last name?"_

_A touch of colour to her face. "... No."_

_Eighteen days to the wedding._

_x_

"That's a mighty fine horse ya got there, by the way." Raven remarked as Rita slid herself off the saddle. The animal couldn't carry the weight of a human _all_ the time.

She ignored him and gathered Damuron's reins in her hand, patting him and giving him a once-over.

"Say, what's his name?"

"That's none of your business." she turned her nose up, crossing her arms. Her nostrils flared cutely.

"Yer mighty cute fer a snob, ya know," he teased.

"Say what you want," she glared, face a tad warmer and hands itching to throw a fireball at him. If he was to lead her to Dahngrest and stay _away_ from the battlefields, she needed him alive and able to walk. "What someone like _you_ thinks of me doesn't matter."

"Aw hey now, that's a bit harsh. Look, you're even blushing! How _cute_." He stepped up to the horse beside her - she moved a few steps away - and looked the animal in the eye.

Damuron puffed air out his nose, watching the new fellow in front of him.

"Well aren't you a good horsie," Raven smiled cheekily, stroking his muzzle. "Don't even have ta tie you up ta keep you here. Sure are loyal to the feisty, mean lady here." His hand ran over a number of scars. Eyes sharp, he looked at her. "What happened here?"

She fidgeted. "... He was being abused."

"Come again?" He looked almost startled for a second.

Rita grit her teeth, clenching her fists. "Couple of good-for-nothing bastards were supposed to be taking care of him in the castle stables. One day, I found them whipping him, and you could see his ribs. They weren't feeding him." She shook her head to clear it, shaking herself. "... I gave them one little burn and they ran away. Ended up being killed by an assassination attempt meant for m- the princess."

"Poor fella," he found thin scars on his back leading up to the saddle. There was probably more under there, he thought.

She unclenched, and clenched again. Why was she telling this stupid stranger this? "I fed him until he was healthy again. I had someone heal his wounds. I practically raised him, I guess. I don't know. He's saved my life more than enough times now." The horse turned his head to eye her and she gave a helpless smile. "Sometimes it seems like he can understand us, and then the next minute he gets stupid as hell. Like a human."

"Hah," he snorted. "What were ya doin' around the castle, anyway?"

The hostility came back. "None of your business."

"All right, all right, I got it, sheesh. Just curious, that's all." He put his hands up in his defense.

They walked forward in silence.

_Seventeen days to the wedding._

_x_

_Blood. Blood blood blood._

_So much blood, everywhere._

_Stop the war. Stop it. All it brings is pain and suffering and hurt and-_

_Death._

_Death and blood and tears and pain and neverending hatred and oh god why does it have to be like this-_

_Don'tlookdon'tlookdon'tlook-_

_Those two girls, those two girls, one with green hair, one with red hair, their - father? - they just wanted to protect, protect, dead, dead, deaddeaddead-_

_They shouldn't have even been near this place._

_Hurry up, hurry, or it will never end, never nevernever._

_Stop it. Stop it. Stopstopstop!_

"_LOOK OUT!"_

_x_

Damuron lay breathing heavily on the ground, blood pouring out from the wound in his chest. Rita held her hands over the hole above his heart, trying to stop the bleeding. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.

"I sent you back yesterday! _Yesterday!_ Why did you follow us?" she cried out with a sob. "This is a battlefield! You're not a war horse, you were supposed to go _back!_ I _told_ you it was dangerous, you stupid horse!"

Despite the pain, Damuron just flicked his tail at her, as if to say _don't be stupid. Like I was going back without you._

Rita's hands slipped against the skin, slick with blood. She pushed back on the wound desperately. "You're not supposed to die here, you idiot! You were supposed to go home and wait for me to come back! Don't," she swallowed, blinded by tears. "Don't die here."

Raven watched from behind, wishing things had gone any other way that wouldn't bring pain.

"I know! I'll- I'll cauterize the wound. Th-that will stop the... the bleeding. We'll wrap you in a lot of bandages, you stupid horse, a-and we'll-"

"Rita."

"We'll get you to a... to a healer. We'll get you there as soon as poss-"

"Rita, it's no use."

She whirled around, glaring blindly. "What do _you_ know what can be done or not? There's still... We can save him! I'll just... cauterize the-" Her whole body was shaking _so much_.

"That won't stop the _bleeding_," Raven reasoned with her helplessly. "It might look like it, but he'll still be bleedin' on the inside no matter what ya do, and it'll hurt like hell. I'm sorry."

"No! There _has_ to be a way! Don't die on me, Damuron. Don't die on me, goddammit!"

She could feel his life slipping away. She sobbed harder and heavier, hands slipping and returning, shifting and sliding.

The horse, with a shuddering breath, used the last of his energy to bump his head with her shoulder, almost as if to tell her _don't worry, I'm fine_.

Then, he went still.

Rita cried out, hands pushing harder on the injury. "Don't joke around like that! It's not funny! Get _up_, damn you!"

"_Rita._"

Her shoulders jerked, and she stilled as reality hit her like a ton of bricks.

"... I'm sorry. He's gone."

Rita pulled her hands away, staring at her blurry red palms. The blood blended with her gloves; the only indication that there _was_ blood was that it stained her fingers. They couldn't stay still.

None of her would stay still.

Something wrapped around her, warm and heavy. Rita turned around to find herself in Raven's arms, staring into his bright teal eyes. He held her gently, like she would break at even the lightest touch. But when she buried her face in his chest and clung on desperately, sobbing, he held her tighter and tighter until there was nothing left in the world but him and her and sorrow and a _need to be with her-_

One silver-haired man - traitor to Zaphias and everyone but himself - lay dead in the field, lone arrow in the chest.

_Fifteen days to the wedding._

_x_

One tombstone, one plot, one cross, one horse.

Two prayers, two people, two hearts, one source.

Enough tears and sadness and pain and wishing-

Determination and fire all over again.

_x_

"We should be about half-way ta the city by now," Raven commented out of nowhere. "Should take us a couple more days ta get to the capital."

"Good. The sooner we can get there, the better." She fiddled with the things on her clothes - the little pocketbooks and the pens and even the large book she'd attached to the back. It was something he learned that she did when she thought of magic and inventions and _people_. "We need to hurry up and get this over with."

It had become an increasing habit for her to fiddle with her tools.

The edge of a town appeared in the east; Rita could tell it was well-populated and bustling. There was even a _coliseum_.

"Agreed." Raven spread his arms out wide. "Man, I can't be_lieve_ how much land there is between Zaphias n' Dahngrest. If I were king, I'd put one, maybe two new cities along this route. Y'know, fer people ta live and for trade and that kinda crap. I'd call it..." He stroked his chin. "Heliord. Or... somethin' like that. Maybe."

Rita scoffed. "Heliord? That sounds like the kind of place nobles would go to take advantage of everyday-people who work hard. I bet they'd promise to allow them to become nobles if they work hard enough. Too bad that's not how it works."

"How does it work, then, O'Knowledgeable One? If ya don't mind my askin' if that is." Raven waved a flimsy hand around.

"You can't _work_ to become a noble. They won't let it. The only way is to be born a noble, or to be raised in a noble family - but then you'd be a _lesser_ noble. It's stupid, really. That's why nobility is stupid." She wasn't insulting herself. She was insulting every member of nobility who thought they were above anyone and everyone. "Or if the emperor chooses to give you a title of nobility, or something like it."

"And you know this how?" Again with the questions.

"It's... none of your business." Again with the same response.

"Stingy," he cross his arms behind his head and _hmm_ed. "That's why Dahngrest ain't a city of nobles an' royalty. Only strong leaders have the right to take over. Always through a fair fight, though. The place _hates_ assassins. Kill the king while he's sleepin' and yer exiled. Fight in a fair match with him and win - but he doesn't hafta die - and yer the new king."

She mulled over it. "That... makes sense, I guess."

There was a pause as they walked forward.

"... What would ya call it then?

Rita looked up. "Call what?"

"The towns. Y'know."

She looked thoughtful for a moment. Estelle had always liked the name... "Aurnion."

"Aurnion, huh?" He stroked his chin. "That has a nice ring to it. Somethin' like the land a' hope, right?"

She paused, flabbergasted. How did he...? "Yeah, something like that."

"Don't look at me like that, lady," he looked back with a crooked grin. "I'm not illiterate. That name comes from a pretty popular book." He faced forward again.

Rita eyed the back of his head suspiciously. It was popular, alright. Popular around _nobles_. Not enough commoners were taught to read or write, let alone have enough money to scrape by.

Either this scruffy man was a literate thief, or he was hiding something from her.

_Eleven days to the wedding._

_x_

"Hey. Old man."

"Hm?"

"That, over there," Rita pointed. "That's the city of Dahngrest, right?"

"Oh. Uh, yeah." He had a faraway look in his eyes.

Rita eyed him suspiciously. "What's the big deal?"

"What?"

"That!" He looked at her, startled. "You've been out of it since yesterday! What's the matter with you?"

"There's nothin' wrong with me. I'm perfectly normal! Fit as can be!" He held up his arms, flexing in a pose.

"I'm not falling for that." She gave him the stink eye.

"Ain't nothin' ta fall for, my dear." Raven gave her the sketchiest smile he could muster. It was bright and soft and kind and _clearly_ something must have been up.

Nevermind that something stupid in her nearly skipped a beat.

_Seven days to the wedding._

… Just a few days before the king and Estelle leave to meet at the border.

_x_

"_He never wanted ta' start the war, y'know."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_The guy you call the king a' this place. Never wanted to start the war."_

"_... Then why did it happen?"_

_A sigh. "He can't control anythin' these days. Everythin's been done by other guildsmen under 'im - and spies. It's sorta somethin' like what the Zaphias Council guys are doin'." Hand through hair. "Doesn't wanna get married, but it was the only way he could think of to stop those guys from takin' the war even further. Doesn't hurt anyone too bad."_

_Clenched fist. "It hurts Este- the princess."_

"_... What would you do to help her?"_

"_Anything. Anything and everything."_

_A mutter. "... We'll see about that..."_

"_What was that?"_

"_Nothin', my dear."_

…

"_Look, I'm sorry, but this is the farthest I'll go."_

"_What do you mean by that?"_

"_I'm a bit of a wanted man here, ya see. Can't get very far when there're guards everywhere."_

_Skeptism pushed to the back of her mind. She'd deal with it later._

"_Then..." Faintly flustered. "Thanks. For all the help."_

"_Anythin' and everythin', darlin'." A kiss to the forehead._

_Gone._

_x_

Rita hadn't even been walking for ten minutes when a trio of guards had stopped her.

"Halt!"

"I say, Halt!"

She glared at them, fingers itching to throw fireballs at them. "What do you want?"

The burly man saluted, hand in a fist over his heart. "My lady, our Lord Monarch wishes to see you."

"... Lord Monarch?" She held back a snort of laughter. "Can't you just call him a king?"

"I say, do you mock us?"

"How infuriating!"

"Silence!" The burly one whipped out his arm to shut them up. "Yes. Many of us do call him a king. It is just that I-"

"Okay," she interrupted him. "I'm pretty sure you've got the wrong person. I'm-"

"You are Lady Mordio, correct?" She stared at him, shocked. "Our Majesty has declared that you are to be a guest. He has instructed us to bring you to his castle."

Rita narrowed her eyes. How would he-?

"Take me to him."

_Six days to the wedding._

_x_

"These are your quarters while you're here, my lady." The maid with the antennae bowed. Rita looked around the room, scanning the hearth and the fresh clothes laid out on the bed. "The king has said that you will probably appreciate a hot bath before meeting with him." She gestured to the door to the bathroom. "We trust it has been a long journey."

Rita looked at her. "... You're enjoying this too much."

"Oh, my, what do you mean?" She had a gloved hand resting on her cheek as if she was surprised.

"You're not a maid, are you?"

"You could tell?" The "maid" smiled.

"Yeah."

"You're correct. I'm not a maid, but It is fun though," she remarked with a beautiful smile. Rita looked at the small object handing from one of the antennae.

… Damn, it was cute.

"What's your name?" Rita watched her clasp her hands behind her back and lean forward.

"Oh, you'll find out eventually. I'll leave you to your bath, now." She winked, shut the door, and was gone.

Rita looked grimly at the grime-covered clothes she was wearing. She was caked with blood and dirt.

With a last glance to her once blood-soaked hands, Rita pulled off her clothing and stepped into the bath.

_x_

Rita walked into the room wearing the clean clothes she had stored in the very bottom of her leather pack - clothes that showed who she was, and that she was from Zaphias, and that she was someone to _listen to_.

Someone sat on the throne - presumably the king, but the lights of the blastia beside him shone brightly in her direction. She couldn't see his face at all. The "maid" from before nudged her foreward, encouraging her to speak first.

"My-" Rita cleared her throat, which had become as dry as sandpaper. "My name is Rita Mordio, of- of Zaphias." She licked her lips, squinting her eyes against the blinding lights. "I... would like to request that..."

He waved a hand, indicating that she go on. Her eyes narrowed when she noticed the laidback way he had his legs crossed, left cheek leaning against his knuckles. He wasn't taking her seriously.

Gritting her teeth, Rita sank low onto her hands and knees.

"Please," she raised her voice desperately, face to the floor. The workers of the castle gasped slightly - nobility did not bow on their hands or knees; that was what commoners did! "Stop the war. Stop the war _without_ marrying Princess Estellise. She's going to die on the inside if she goes through with this. I," she swallowed, eyes shut tightly, then touched her forehead to the floor. There was the clank of metal boots - the sound of someone standing. "I beg you."

"Get up," the voice ordered. "There is no need to beg, especially on the floor."

Rita stiffened, not looking up.

"Get up and tell me," she could _hear_ the tilt of his head as he asked: "What would you do to help her, this princess of yours? What will you do to keep her happy and stop this war?"

Rita swallowed, then spoke to the ground. "You know the answer, you rotten old bastard."

"Humour me."

She stood up, glaring into his teal eyes. "_Anything and everything_."

The tan, clean-shaven face of Schwann Oltorain smirked at her fire and determination as the blinding lights faded.

"Then," he extended a metallic gloved hand towards her, "will you be my bride instead?"

Thoughts ran throughout her mind as she glared heatedly.

"The princess will be spared, and the war will end. Neither council nor guildsmen will allow the war to end should a marriage between our two kingdoms _not_ occur." He looked her up and down, eyes showing approval at her strong stance and fiery eyes. "You are not true royalty, but you have been raised as one. No one can object if _we_ are to wed. I ask again: will you be my bride?"

He would have been dead ten times over if looks could kill, given the deathly glare that never left her face.

"... _I accept._"

"Excellent," he grinned predatorily. "I will send a courier to the Zaphias Castle to alert them of the news." He turned to the "maid" with the antennae. "Judith."

She nodded to him. "I'll call Ba'ul."

"How long?"

"At most, two days." The king and the pretend-maid nodded, and they all watched as she left the room.

Schwann turned back to Rita. "Now,_ my queen_, shall we have the preparations set?"

She grit her teeth, fighting a whirlwind of emotions.

"If that is what you wish, _my king_."

**_x x x_**

A/N: ...

That's right. I turned Damuron into a horse. 8D

I uploaded this from google docs onto ffnet, and the weirdest thing is how google docs said 4400-ish words, and ffnet says 5300-ish words. Huh. Oh another note, an update! Yeah. Alternate universe mumbo jumbo, Dahngrest being a kingdom, Rita being a noble? And Schwannisakingwtf. My friend gave me the prompt, and suddenly I had so much in my mind that I just... wanted to make it into a multichapter. But I slapped myself and said _no, you have Blast Heart. Hurry up and update, dammit._ Yeah. This one is very snippet-y with a couple of styles and an unintentional sort-of-poem.

On another note, I will probably continue on in this world with _Queen_, because I had so many ideas. Maybe. It almost makes me want to pull it apart and make it a multi- in the future, just by pulling out each snippet and adding more for a chapter. But... I don't think I'll do that. Too much to do~

Sorry. I'll get back to working on Blast Heart now.


	12. Lightning

_It was always the flash of lightning and the crack of thunder._

_x_

It had been a surprise to him the first time around. Rita Mordio was strong. Rita Mordio was brave. She was a genius and wise, and pretty darn young to boot. She feared no one and nothing and didn't let anyone stand in her way.

The girl huddled in the corner of the small storage room of the Atherum definitely had not been her.

And yet... it _was_ her - and Raven had simply stood there for a moment in that empty, cobwebbed doorway, peering almost in disbelief at the young girl behind the crates, shaking and clutching her head between her knees.

No one had known how the mage had slipped away from their party of four; Yuri and Repede had charged through one, two, three hallways filled with monsters, Raven and Rita behind them to watch their backs. Somewhere after the third empty hall in a row, Raven had noticed the unusual lack of footsteps - Rita had kept quiet most of the time, so all he had heard of her were footsteps - and he'd turned around in a full 360 before alerting the swordsman and his dog that somehow, some time ago, she had gone missing.

Yuri had offered for all of them to go back and look, Repede waiting patiently by his feet, but the archer had simply waved them off and turned back himself - _Two hallways left. I'm sure you can handle the rest; I doubt there's any creepy-crawlies in there, anyway_ - to open the door into the previous hallway.

Raven had always been a careful man. He listened carefully and worked carefully and kept his secrets carefully - so when he put his ear up to a door and heard the sounds of breathing, he had been careful to open the door slowly, quietly as he could.

There had been a crack of noise outside - thunder and lightning, he recalled, had rolled over them at the start of their way out of the ghost ship - and the huddled girl had simply curled tighter in on herself, shuddering.

The soft call of her name on his lips had startled her, that much he had realized when her hands shot up with fire ready to burn, but he had simply held his hands up and walked slowly towards her until it went away, until the fire went away and all that had happened was Rita giving him a glossy-eyed glare. And then the lightning flashed and the thunder clapped and she had flinched and backed up against the wall, sinking to a crouch once again and ignoring him completely.

Raven was not a heartless man. He'd seen the telltale signs of fear before (which, with Rita, he supposed, was showing itself due to the combination of the belief of the supernatural and the weather outside) - seen it on men and women and one dull reflection on his own dusty metal armour when Casey had-

And he'd let the door shut quietly behind him, not only for her peace of mind but in case of any possible remaining monsters as well, and hopped over the stack of crates she'd hidden behind. The alarming fact that she had done nothing about that (except maybe flinch away from him because _look, you're so weak that he's going to mock you now_) gave him the incentive to kneel in front of her and pull her into his arms without thinking, and looking back on it now left him thinking _damn, damn, damn, what stupid thing to do, now look at what's happened to you and look at what you've just done._

But at the time, none of it had mattered; all that _did_ matter was the way her hands had moved slowly, hesitantly to grip his coat tightly, the way she clung on for dear life, the wonderful, pleasant warmth she radiated to his own once-dead self, and the way that she fit in his arms against him so well and so perfectly comforting to himself that he could do nothing else but tighten his hold on her.

And when forever had passed by and he'd found himself sitting against the wall, arms full of sleeping Rita, he'd cursed himself for letting her get so close to the thing that was his heart - so close to giving himself away and letting her find out he wasn't a _real_, _living human_.

He had reluctantly gotten them both up somehow, him standing and Rita carried in his arms, and by the time he had stepped out of the door and into the hallway, Yuri and Repede had returned looking for them. Raven had simply shrugged with a wry grin, _Kid thought she saw a blastia in there, and with all the empty halls an' all, she figured she'd just take a peek. Fell asleep in there even though she was only there fer a minute or two._

When Rita had woken up, squirming in his arms, he'd let her go and inwardly missed the extra bundle of heat that came with her. She'd glared at him - _if you tell anyone_ - and he'd draped a hand on her head, patting her hair, _won't say a word, darlin'_, and then they went on like nothing had happened.

Now, Schwann Oltorain stood by idly as Alexei worked the apatheia on the unconscious princess, drawing out her powers for his own use. It was better for her not to feel or see anything as it happened, the captain supposed. But it wasn't his place to care, anyway, for Schwann was a dead man who never existed, just as Damuron was a dead man who ceased to exist. Just as Raven was a man who lived but never existed.

And for one fleeting moment, half an hour after Estellise Sidos Heurassein had woken up and just as Yuri and the others made their way into the final room, Raven found a crack in Schwann's shell and wedged his way through to ask one final question.

If he let them go, let them end his so-called _life_... Who would keep Rita Mordio safe when the thunderstorms and lightning struck?

"_Conversing with you is not one of my duties."_

"_Schwann Oltorain, First Captain of the Imperial Knights. Ready to do battle."_

**_x x__ x_**

A/N: It's been a while, hasn't it? (dammit, ffnet, let me underline my x's! grrr.)

Here's something quick and I-don't-really-know-here-just-have-an-update. :) Done my exams and been hacking away my lungs with a cough for a week now. Anyways. Looking over my previous prompts, I think someday I'm going to replace Fighter with a better piece of work, because in all honesty I half-assed that prompt fairly badly. I don't know when I'll do that, but if I do, I'll let you know. :)


	13. Magic

_It was just like magic._

_x_

He isn't quite sure whether or not most people understand the phrase, "_just like magic_". It's not something he thinks about often, but upon reflection of certain events, he can't help but think that they're always missing one side of the words.

He glances over to the sleeping girl, sleeping _woman_, and lets himself have a few moments of peace and solitude while the sun rises, just to watch her sleep a little bit longer. She would probably understand his thoughts, but if he told her, she would probably smack him on the head and tell him to stop being silly.

It's not his fault he was born a philosophical man, really, but Rita never seems to agree with the _philosophical_ part and only ever agrees that he's a _foolish_ man.

Not that he can complain, though, because it was a foolish man that won over her heart anyway. Just like magic.

It's that phrase that is never right when said for anything else. Raven mulls over these words and brushes a lock of hair out of her face. Magic is _slow_. It's not an instantaneous _thing_ that happens at the snap of your fingers or the blink of an eye - though that is an exception in some cases.

It takes nearly a lifetime to understand its flows - the aer, the blastia, input, output, the people themselves - though Rita has nearly all of that mastered in less than fifteen years of her life.

Or, to be more precise, less than six years, because she'd only been a mage for five years before Yuri and the others had chanced upon her shack of a home.

Even so, the process of magic isn't instant. Casting is always slow, always tedious; learning just one spell takes even longer to do. For anyone else, to learn the number of spells she has learned would take a minimum of twice the time she spent, if not triple.

The other half of magic is what most people understand, though, and he gives them credit for that. It conjures _something_ out of nothing, and in a sense, he supposes, magic _is _instantaneous, because one moment she's casting, and the next thing he knows is that a fireball is right in front of his face. It simply happens too fast for anyone to see.

When Rita stirs, he smiles and whispers a gentle _good morning_. Rita only blinks up at him with bleary eyes through her lashes, then rolls over and tells him _it's too early, go back to sleep, stupid,_ and Raven only chuckles and kisses the bare skin of her shoulder exposed by the thin straps of her tank top.

What had happened between him and Rita, he supposes, is just like magic. Spending so much time around each other had made his affections grow - hers, as well, though she didn't realize it until long after he'd discovered his own feelings. One moment he'd been watching her monitor his blastia's formula, and the next, he'd found himself wanting to pull her close and never let go.

Slow and fast. Gradual and sudden.

Hardly any time passes before Raven decides to comply with her earlier demand, pulling her closer to him and letting his eyes drift shut and the rest of his thoughts be nothing but her.

Love had crept up slowly on the both of them, and when they were least expecting it, it slapped them in the face.

Just like magic.

* * *

><p>AN: Just a little short late-at-night something written at 2 AM. Thank you for reading!


	14. Natural

_What struck her the most was how oddly natural this had become._

_x_

The first time Rita had woken up with his face next to hers had been before the fall of the Adephagos. In an inn somewhere - or had they camped outside? - Raven had prodded her with something - whether it was a pen or a stick, she didn't know - and she had woken up slowly.

First, open the eyes. Second, blink a few times, slow and bleary. Third, inhale a deep breath and tug the blanket over the head. Fourth, roll over tiredly.

Fifth, stick a hand out and send a fireball flying. Sixth, go back to sleep.

_x_

The fourth time must have been after Baction, when Estelle had been rescued and they'd been recovering at the castle. Conversions on Estelle's formula had been completed. Townspeople had received first aid attention. Rita had called for one of the castle servants to fetch _that loser sleeping in the prison cells, you know who he is,_ because his formula was next on her to-fix list.

And she had waited for the longest time, because the castle was so damn big and the room she was stuck in had been on the side _opposite_ the prison. It had been no wonder she fell asleep on the soft, lush bed that could fit three, with its silk covers and downy pillows made for the snobby, stuck up nobles and their prissy little asses - many of whom had no idea what "hardship" even meant.

When she'd opened her eyes, she'd found him slouched over on a chair, head in his arms, breath fanning the little strands of hair that fell in his face. Sleepily, she'd batted the strands with a finger a few times before catching herself in the middle of the act and wondering what the _hell_ she was doing.

After convincing herself that his eyelashes were too long, his stubble too stubble-y, and his cheekbones too well-defined, Rita pushed him off the bed and rolled over, returning to sleep.

Hours later, before the sun was finished setting, Rita had woken up to find him partially sprawled out horizontally on the bed, using her stomach as his pillow.

She found she didn't care much about that, and went back to sleep.

_x_

The eighth time was probably after the party celebrating the fall of the Adephagos - and Estelle's birthday - when a few too many glasses of alcoholic punch had been forced into Rita's hand.

How was she supposed to have known it was alcoholic? All she knew was that it had tasted good. It wasn't her fault she had _that many_ refills...

When she woke up in Raven's arms - but fully clothed, thankfully - the scream she let out could have woken up the entire castle.

And to think, he came up with the sad excuse that she had begged him not to leave her alone in the middle of the night because she was "_scared he would never come back since all the other blastia had stopped functioning and who knew when his was going to stop?_"

She never admitted it, but her drunk self had told the truth.

_x_

The tenth time was when she had woken up to discover their limbs entangled with each other's under the blankets. Her face had been nuzzled into his neck with his stubble brushing her temple; her slim legs entwined with his, his arms wrapped around her, her arms between his chest and hers - both very _nude_ and exposed.

Rita had blushed and pulled away. Raven had grumbled, pulled her closer, and kissed the tip of her ear.

She listened to the sound of his whirring heart and let the comforting warmth he radiated lull her back to sleep.

_x_

The fifteenth time, Rita had wondered when waking up next to him had become natural.


	15. Old

_Nothing could change the fact that he was old and she was young._

_x_

Raven wasn't quite sure how this had started. Up until recently, life had been peaceful for once. No more monster attacks, no more Adephagos, no more wars... so nice and quiet, with the sun shining and clear blue skies, and the salty breeze from the sea beyond the harbour of Capua Torim.

Life was good. Life was _easy._ And he was happy with that, or at least until the clouds rolled in and the rain began to pour.

Now he was just tired and wet and cold with a touch of grumpy and a side of the sniffles.

To be honest, he really wasn't expecting much when he first knocked on the large, oaken door. He supposed that he would simply get his ass handed to him, door slammed in his face, because he was pretty damn sure the owner of the house finally had the sense to hate him seriously for once. Or, maybe twice, though the first time had hardly lasted because he went and played pretend-hero to ease his own selfish guilt.

What he got, however, was an invitation in the form of a young girl- woman- _girl_ stepping aside and telling him to _get in, old man. Hurry up before you catch a stupid fever._

And so he did, leaving puddles in his wake (though he tried hard not to drip) and his shoes by the door, unsure of what to do because he honestly did not want to get her entire living room soaked through. She, however, didn't give it a second thought and pushed him none too gently towards the hearth (with her _foot_, nonetheless).

Raven sighed and grabbed the coat hanger near the door, draping on it his purple coat and his pink shirt and settling it and himself near the warm, warm fire.

Small feet thudded quietly down the stairs; when he looked up, a towel was more or less thrown at his face. He might have objected a year ago with loud, boisterous outbursts of _manhandling_ and something along the lines of her _being a terrible hostess_, but now he simply accepted it with a muttered _thanks_ and quiet silence. Slowly, he towelled off his hair and draped it across his bare shoulders.

(Months of being forced topless around her made himself a little less discomforted by the round orb in his chest and a little more comfortable just around her.)

The fire crackled crisply in the thick air; Rita quietly set his boots next to him beside the fire and sat on the couch behind him- where she was before he'd knocked, he noticed, with a thin blanket, a thick book, and- were those reading glasses?

She looked up and caught his eye for a split second before he turned his head back to the fire. He heard her exhale slowly behind him, the air thicker than the wax that covered blocks of cheese in the market. Or maybe it was just him? He didn't know.

His _grumpy_ was gone with his sniffles leaving and his _cold_ turned to _warm_, and he was just a little less wet and a little more dry. Not that it made a big difference, anyway.

Somewhere in the background a kettle began to whistle; the woman-girl on the couch shut her book with a sigh and left, blanket in a tumbled mess and glasses thrown askew in the middle. Raven almost gave a sigh of relief- almost- except she returned much too quickly and with two mugs of tea: one for her and one for him. He accepted his graciously, still quietly, and warily noticed she still used the deep green mug he gave her on her sixteenth birthday. It wasn't even a real gift, to be honest, but she'd been happy enough (and he'd seen through her tough-girl mask) that he didn't bother to tell her of the pretty gold necklace with its pretty little red gems that he bought for her.

He still kept it a secret, and she still knew nothing of it. Maybe she never would.

His cup was hot and his tea was perfect and the feeling of eyes boring through the back of his head made the air thick like ice. He took a sip. "Yes, Rita?" he asked.

"Why are you here?" she answered with a question of her own. It neither accusing nor skeptical - just tired.

He took another slow drink of the scalding liquid, watching the dancing flames and the burning logs.

"I was looking for a bit of shelter from the rain."

"That's not what I mean."

"It is what _I_ mean."

Silence hung for a few minutes, Rita watching his back and Raven watching the flames. They could hear the pitter patter of the rain outside go from heavy to light and back to heavy.

"... Where did you go?"

It almost broke Raven's heart, so quiet and sad and sounding broken itself, no matter how hard she tried to hide the hurt and pain, because she was nearly broken herself - but only around him.

He shrugged instead.

"Places." he drank. "Elsewhere and everywhere. Aurnion, Zaphias, Dahngrest, Heliord, Halure." _Everywhere but here._

But she was not as broken as he thought her to be. Her anger began to steep slowly, like little wisps from a blown-out candle pooling in a cup rather than dissipating into the air.

"Why did you leave, old man?"

Ah, there it was. _Old man._

"You know why, Rita."

"No, I don't." she snapped.

"Yes, you do, Rita. We went over this a while ago."

"Yeah, _you_ went over this last-" she swallowed, "last year, when you decided to just drop everything and _leave_. You never cared enough to listen to the shit I had to say, did you, Raven? Huh? You did it for _yourself!_"

"I did it for _you_, damn it!" His fist pounded on the floor, startling Rita. He ran a hand through his hair and looked forlornly into the fire. "Even if we- I... it just wasn't going to work, no matter how much I want to- wanted to stay." He swallowed a lump in his throat. She looked at the floor, at the book in her hands, at the blanket over her lap.

"... You love me."

"I did." he stated distantly.

"You still love me." she repeated.

Raven sighed, not because she was persistent but because she could still see through him.

"... I do."

"Then I don't see the problem."

He was nearing his wit's end.

"You don't under_stand_, Rita. You just don't get it!" his voice rose by the tiniest of volume. "It's for your own _good_, can't you see? I'm _old_. You're _young_. People are going to whisper behind your back. There will be insults. You won't be able to step outside of your goddamn _house_ without people staring at you and wondering what the hell kind'a shit I pulled to _force_ you into bein' with me. And the things they'll say about me? They'll be _right!_ I'm a sick bastard. A monster. Disgusting. How long will it take for you to get sick of all the rumours? Until you start hating me for causing you all this trouble and being the reason why everyone looks down on you?"

"... Am I supposed to care, old man?" he cringed, just barely. _Old man, old man, old man._ "How young do you think I am? I raised _myself_ and listened to _no one_. I helped save the world when I was almost sixteen. I made a name for myself - a _home_ for myself - before any of you came and broke into my house and took me away on some damn quest to save the world. It was a tiny little shack in the corner of the city and everyone called me a freak, but did I care? _No!_ Since when have I listened to what anyone has said about me, huh?" Rita stood up, blanket sliding to the floor.

"That's different." he argued tiredly, weariness settling into his bones like a haggard old man settling into his armchair. "That's-"

"No! It's _not_ different! It's the same as it has been, and it's the same as it will be!" she heaved. "_You_ are the one who doesn't get it, Raven. _You_ are doing this for yourself."

"I'm not-"

"You _are._" she was less angry and more tired now, exhaustion pouring into her. "You're just a scared old man," _old man, old man, old man,_ "who's afraid that one day, he'll lose something he has. _Again_."

He winced. "You're going to hate me eventually-"

"You don't know that." she cut him off. "You don't know where you'll be tomorrow night. You don't know what you'll eat for breakfast in two days. You don't know when the world will decide to turn on us for getting rid of blastia." He could feel her sinking to her knees behind his back. "... You don't know how long I can love someone for."

Her arms wrapped around his shoulders, one hand resting above his heart. He took that hand in his own. "You don't know either," he muttered softly and squeezed.

"You're right. I don't. But why give up when you haven't _actually_ tried?"

"Because I'm a coward."

He felt her chuckle. "That's right, Raven. You are a coward." She let go of him and moved in front of him. "But there was a time when you stopped being a coward. Remember that? When you stood up and said 'ah, fuck it, ta hell with this shit'?"

That earned her a chuckle from him. "I don't think I quite said those words, darlin'."

"But you still stepped out of that stupid shell of yours. Nothing's stopping you from doing it again now, old man. Nothing but yourself."

"Rita... we... I can't..."

"You can." she looked at him. "You want this. I want this. The whole world can go to hell and back, and we'll still be okay."

Raven reached out a hand to cup her face, and Rita held it with her own, leaning forward to brush her lips softly against his - the same way they did one year before.

"Rita..." he whispered, burying his hand in her hair while she cupped his face with both hands. They met halfway, and again, and again, until he lay on the floor tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth, and she was running through his hair.

"Just give me one night," she breathed, out of breath and warm and so sinfully delicious against his body. "One night, and then you can run away again if you're so damn scared."

He stared into her eyes for an eternity and a half before he exhaled, murmured, "Okay, Rita. Ya got me," and met her halfway again.

And when she woke, he was still there.

* * *

><p>AN: It's been a while, hasn't it?

I originally had an entirely different idea for the letter "o," but having read the latest flux of this age issue coming up (again), I sat down at 3 am and let my fingers type away. I also feel like my writing has definitely improved since some of the middle-earlier chapters; I guess university English courses help out sometimes! Hahaha!

The tone of this is supposed to be kind of... sad? Sad and melancholy and a little bit tense, and sort of like winter, only I guess it's more like autumn, really. Rita is around the age of 17-18, and in the universe of this chapter, she's matured and become less... angry, I suppose. More "sensitive" and open with her actual emotions around Raven rather than hiding behind anger all the time. The pre-story to this can involve as much drama or as little as you want, but we'll just say things good and bad happened and Raven just didn't want to risk anything. (Man, I feel like I make him leave her alone a lot.)

But then again, my excuses for her different attitude may just be because I haven't actually done much to refresh my memory of their personalities and such. Oh well.

Merry Christmas, everyone!


	16. Perfect

_They were both flawed, but to each other they were perfect._

_x_

Occasionally, Raven had a great disliking for many of his own traits.

His hands were too scarred and too big, he was too tall, his blastia too cold, and sometimes he was a little too strong for his own liking.

Rita's hands were small and soft with little nicks here and there, and sometimes his hands were too big to hold hers _normally_.

She was short - he wasn't going to sugar-coat it - but sometimes he wished he himself was just a little bit shorter, just so it'd be easier to kiss her a little more often (and hurt his back less).

On winter nights, he couldn't help but sigh when the clothes he wore could only do so much to keep in the heat; when Rita climbed into bed with him and rested her head on his chest, she would murmer a soft "_cold..._" and he would feel her goosebumps rising.

Sometimes he hurt her because _dammit,_ he wasn't gentle enough, how could he have been so _stupid?_ And he'd feel ashamed and guilty at every glimpse.

But occasionally, he found that he loved his traits.

His hands were too big to hold Rita's "normally," but they were large enough to protect hers, and every new scar on his was another injury she would never be hurt by.

She was short and she tried to be dominant, so in the privacy of their own home he would use his height advantage to tower over her, back her into the wall when she tried to take control because he _knew_ she loved it, _knew_ it when her face was flushed and when her eyes darkened with something a little more than love.

On winter nights, when his blastia got too cold, she knew how to warm up the orb and the metal. He in turn knew how to warm up the rest of her body.

Every bruise he left her would earn him a sweet smile, but how could she _smile_ when he hurt her like that? And he would whisper apologies and leave fluttering kisses along the bruises, and she would run her fingers through his hair and tell him everything was _okay, you idiot, just shut up and kiss me_.

_x_

Sometimes, Rita hated things about herself.

Her hands were too small. She was too short. Her temper was too hot. She bruised too easily.

Raven's hands were large and calloused, rough with years of training and fighting and protecting. Sometimes she wished her hands were big enough to fit perfectly in his own so she could share some of the pain.

He was tall - not the tallest, but over a head taller than her - and she hated being short because it was harder to kiss him when they were both standing.

She became too angry too easily sometimes. She'd say words she didn't mean and hit him a little too often, and sometimes she _did_ bruise him - and he was hard to bruise.

On the other hand, her own skin was easy to bruise even when it didn't hurt, and she hated the look full of worry and guilt on his face when he thought he'd hurt her.

Other times, she... didn't think they were all that bad.

His hands had all the scars, so sometimes at night she would hold one in her own and trace over each one, and he would kiss her for every new injury she didn't get.

She liked being assertive - it was easier being a _woman_ who knew what she wanted than being some passive aggressive _girl_. So when Raven fought her for control and used his height to his advantage, there was no one else but him who really knew how much of a turn on it was for her.

Her temper burned quite a bit. And when it burned too hot, he burned her back in more ways than one - sometimes on her desk, sometimes on the kitchen counter, and even once near an open window where people obliviously passed by.

Every time, he would notice her injuries first. Some were done herself: a stubbed toe, a bruised shin, a burn on the finger from playing with too much fire; others were from accidents - accidents from things that go bump in the night. Some of them looked like fingers with a tight grip on her wrists, but every single one would be met with kisses that left her tingling, and maybe she didn't mind anymore when those lips kissed her senseless and left her breathless.

* * *

><p>AN: It's been a while. University, then a trip to China, then just over a week back home.

I had this word just pop into my head a little while ago and it just sort of connects with a little bit of how I feel/felt regarding someone very important to me. Height differences can be frustrating when you're still in the awkward stages of a slow relationship. But whatever.

I feel obligated to finish Abecedarian before I continue with Blast Heart, so hopefully there will be more coming soon now that I'm out of school. Thanks for your patience! :)


	17. Queen

… _and she was to be his queen._

_x_

The people of Dahngrest are, at first, wary of the _woman from the other side_. She's a _Zaphias noble_, and Zaphias nobles don't understand the meaning of _hard work_ and _suffering_ and _loss_. They flit around in too many layers, with their breeches too tight, mail too polished, and enough heavy jewelry to anchor down a dozen warships.

The price of bread is steadily rising and the number of jobs isn't enough for the people returning from battle. The war may have ended, but that will mean nothing if the people riot and starve.

The _queen from Zaphias_ probably doesn't care, they whisper. She's a noble from Zaphias, and _her kind_ don't care for the poor. They say she spends her days in the castle polishing jewels from the life she left behind, smelling perfumes and eating sweets until her pretty little belly is near to burst.

The waitress at their table in the _Sagittarious_ tavern only laughs with them, and adds that maybe the queen spends her time fending off the king's childishness and his "attacks". The men guffaw at the thought of the uptight Schwann Oltorain being childish in general, and the idea that he would attempt to put his hands on a Zaphias woman - any kind of woman, really - and the waitress only chuckles with them.

The eavesdropping women at the next table chip in and suggest that maybe the queen pouts for her sweets and plays with the servants. They say that Zaphias women are fond of teasing men. The waitress serves them their meals and suggests that maybe the queen is really just like everyone else and walks amongst them during the day like a commoner.

Of course, they don't believe her, but the waitress doesn't mind. She busies herself until the tavern closes and she gets her pay for the night.

She doesn't need the money, not really, but the owners refuse to leave her unpaid so she graciously accepts the purse and exits the doors.

She's still in her work clothes, but she doesn't care quite so much because no one recognizes her unless they're frequent guests of the tavern. Even then, they're usually on their way home once it's closed.

She slips into her home quietly so no one wakes up, and in her room she falls on her bed without so much as changing, and in minutes she is asleep.

In the morning she gets up and changes her clothes; gone are her apron and skirt, replaced by a regular pair of breeches and a simple shirt instead. She takes her coin, and the extra she already has, and steps out into the market, face washed and hair brushed. The first thing she buys is bread, then pastries, fruits, vegetables, meats, rice, sweets - anything she can get her hands on.

Her pockets are emptied in the markets. A man sidles up beside her, tall, too young for his full head of grey hair, with an easy, lazy smile. The waitress pays him no mind but for the act of dumping half her goods in his arms.

The man pretends to sag, as if overcome by the weight, but she marches forward and he trails along behind her. There are plenty of people who pass by and spare them no more than a glance; busy folk on their way to work, perhaps, or people who don't care, or people with too much to do and too little time who have seen them nearly every day.

There are few who know them: a boy with blonde hair who's not yet a man, but at the same time not quite a boy, carrying a piece of lumber over his shoulder; a man with spiky hair, a long lock of it falling down and over his right eye, carrying a bouquet of flowers and trailed after by two young girls; a tall kritya woman with blue hair pulled into a bun and an innocently knowing smile on her face.

Time passes by and barely any words are said; they don't need them, not for this. Their route is simple: from the heart of the town to the outskirts. The waitress's heels clack against the brick road, her boots short and brown, a mundane pair to her ordinarily mismatched. The man's purple coattails only trail behind him, fluttering in the wind, free, graceful, oddly calming.

Peaceful.

The war is over, gone from the joining of the two kingdoms. Men have returned home: fathers, brothers, sons, cousins, nephews, uncles, grandsons. The only use for weapons now is to ward off the monsters that threaten to attack the cities.

The number of passing men and women have lessened. The walls here are dirtier, the doors more scratched. Rats and mice live in the walls, but the cats around the streets are still lazy and fat. The roads are no longer paved with brick but with stone. The houses are filled with mothers of babes too young to leave alone for work, filled with children and crippled and elderly and sick and _dying_. The waitress's arms ache but she keeps moving forward with the man in tow. Her pride will not let him relieve her of the weight she carries, that her understands.

The first person they come across is the young boy they've met so many times before: brown hair, green eyes, a hand-me-down weapon and a bag both twice his size in the corner of his home. A boy too young who's seen the war and ran away, and ran back and saved lives because the long-haired guildsman was only trying to protect, and the grey-haired archer saved his life once upon a battlefield.

The boy helps build, helps cook, helps clean, helps take care of the sick. All he's ever asked for is a place to belong, a place to stay - people to call family.

Right now, he takes care of the strong girl who lies in bed sick.

The waitress leaves a loaf of bread on the boy's kitchen counter, with vegetables and herbs and spices and a little bit of meat, while the grey-haired man writes a recipe for soup in quick, jerky strokes. Then they leave, and the young are on the streets panhandling for their lives.

Bit by bit goes the bread, the pastries, the rice and vegetables and meats and fruits and sweets. A boy dances with an apple in his hand and a loaf of bread in the other. A girl runs home with a bowl of rice grains and a handful of meat and spices to feed her pregnant mother. A gaunt, sickly man wipes his eyes when the grey-haired man offers him an armful of produce.

The food is gone when a child tugs at the man's pants, young and skinny with a thumb in his mouth. The waitress is distraught, patting her pockets for anything left. All she can produce is a small sweet candy and a copper pence gald. The boy's mother comes chasing after him for having run away, and the man fishes out a silver mark and places it gently in the mother's palm.

She cries and hugs her son and thanks the man and the waitress near a hundred times, and she runs with her child to the market. _Tonight, she's going to cook his favourite food and they will have a feast for kings..._

The waitress glares at him for the danger the mother could be in, but his easy going smile tells her that it will be alright. She ignores him and lets her gaze linger after the two until they can't be seen. He sees her worry, and it only makes him smile.

Their hands are empty now, so the man grabs hers and holds it in his own. The waitress's eyes dart quickly around, but he's done this before and no one really pays attention.

Still, she pulls away.

He understands, because he was a liar and told her a partial truth, and used her to win peace, though she did the same.

But somewhere along the way, she had shown up in his heart, unannounced. And for a short while, he had an inkling that he had wormed his way into hers, too... until the night of the wedding, when she stood above him coldly, regally, on his own throne in an empty throne room and said to his face that she hated him.

No, it was the day he had presented himself as the king and not the grey-haired archer that he felt her anger, radiating off in waves, turning to hatred and betrayal.

On the morrow, the princess of Zaphias comes to Dahngrest with her healers, where the waitress will greet her as queen and as sister, and the grey-haired man will greet her as king and as family.

_x_

The waitress is surprised and a little bit angry when one of the servants from the castle, standing still in shock in the middle of the entrance, finds her working in the Sagittarious, and she mentally kicks herself for acknowledging the two spoken words.

_Your highness?_

She flinches on the inside and hopes it doesn't show. The servant is mistaken, of course she is, why would her highness work in a tavern? So she bears some resemblance to her. So what?

_You're wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong._

But that sneaky, damned woman, with her blue hair and her kritya antennae appears behind the servant and says that _yes_, she is the queen, and the waitress only tightens her grip on the dirty plates in her hands.

The patrons are staring at her now, openly and scrutinizing because they swear they _know_ who this blue-haired kritya is, until someone agrees that this waitress be the queen, and another confirms, until the tavern is overcrowding with guests and passersby trying to see the her, touch her, talk to her.

Before she can yell at them, before anyone can calm them down, the grey-haired man whisks her away in his arms and they disappear from sight.

The tavern has always been a quiet place, with its own regulars and its own small popularity, but news spreads like wildfire in a town like this, and soon they find themselves swamped with bookings and reservations and _people_ who have the money to spend.

The waitress stops being a waitress and instead introduces the boy with the bag, and soon enough he's doing his job and a half and everyone loves the enthusiastic young boy.

The grey-haired man smiles and his heart almost seems to swell, because she loves the people like he does, loves the people like he's come to love her. He brings in more people to the tavern; people who don't have enough, whose lives depend on finding any kind of work. More cooks, more servers, more dishwashers, more builders.

When the castle whispers and the townspeople question, the queen doesn't deny the work she's put in, but she doesn't openly agree to it, either. She gives a vague answer that doesn't give much away, and still seems give them the answer they hope for, and slowly the the wariness of Dahngrest fades away to accept the woman from Zaphias, first from Aspio, who takes her time to help those in the kingdom who can't help themselves.

Somewhere down the road, the king tells her he loves her, tells her that of all the women in the world, he's glad that it's her standing beside him. He holds her hand and tells her if she wants to leave him, wants to return to Zaphias, wants to step down from his side, he will let her go and give her whatever it is she wishes for.

She only glowers and pulls him forward for a kiss because he's stupid and he's dumb, and she fell in love with him a long time ago.

* * *

><p>AN: This is, I guess, the sequel to my earlier short _King_, if any of you vaguely remember me saying I would write this. Hopefully you enjoyed it; I had a little bit of trouble at the beginning with how to start it. I wrote about one or two different versions before I was really even somewhat satisfied with it.

Au/20/13


	18. Rescue

_Because he was a captain of the Imperial Knights, and she needed to be rescued._

_x_

Rita doesn't care much for tall grass and trees, nor for the small bugs that like to nip at her skin.

The moon shines down on her at night between the leafy canopy, bright and round and glowing. Normally, the trees would whisper in the dark. The grass would blindly tickle her feet, the bugs would buzz in her ear, and the smell of night would fill up her senses. But tonight...

Tonight, the pitch black glows an eerie mix of blues and greys and whites.

When she holds her hands in front of her face, she can see the little details in the lines of her palms. Each little cut, each tiny scab, each fading burn from practicing with fire. There are small welts on her legs from the bugs, itchy and red. Rita absently scratches at one because she's never had someone to tell her _don't scratch that, you'll make it worse_.

Well... even if she had, she would have still scratched it anyway.

The sounds of crickets come from the bushes, noisy but relaxing. A ladybug comes to land on one of her fingers and Rita just watches it scuttle about. It tickles the tip of her finger, but Rita doesn't care.

She is ten years old as of last month. Three weeks, two days, five hours, fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds.

Well, not exactly. She doesn't know the time - hasn't got a watch or a clock on her at all. At most, all she knows is that it's been three weeks and two days since her birthday and seven years since her parents left her.

There's a bitter taste in her mouth, and it's not from her meager dinner.

Tonight, it takes Rita longer to sleep. The night is too bright, the air too crisp, the bugs too loud, the trees too restless. That stupid star in the sky is shining too bright, and Rita just wishes she could throw a rock at it and turn it off.

There's a nest in the tree where two birds are sleeping. Rita wonders how many eggs were laid. When the baby is born, will its parents watch over it? Or will they abandon their chick to fend for itself?

She swallows a lump in her throat and rolls over. _Stupid, stupid Rita - _they were just a bunch of stupid animals. They weren't the parents of a little girl left alone in a broken house. They didn't know what it was like to be told _don't worry, we'll come home soon,_ only to wait and wait and _wait_. All for nothing.

How could they forget her?

_They didn't_.

Didn't they care enough to come home to her?

_Not one bit._

Was there anyone out there who did?

_No one, that's who_. Stupid, Stupid Rita.

She plucks out a strand of grass, eyes getting heavier.

When she reaches Aspio, she'll show them. She's Rita Mordio. She'll make a title for herself.

Worthless no more. Weak no more. Alone no more.

She shuts her eyes.

Maybe… maybe someone will notice her then.

_x_

The smell of damp, musky fur fills her senses, followed by the sounds of something big rummaging through the bushes.

Rita doesn't open her eyes. Not yet. Fear has washed over her. Her few spells run through her mind in one long string - a memorized chant if she's ever in danger. Fire is her nature, but water comes more slowly. She has no training, can't control it, but when it's all or nothing, there's nothing to lose in an empty place like this.

Her eyes crack open slowly. It's still dark outside, but the moon is in a different spot. How much time has passed? She's not sure. Rolling onto her stomach, she looks around. The light from the moon has nearly faded, and the string of fire flashes through her mind.

_No_, she can't risk it. She'll be seen and killed. _Fire's bad at night, remember, Rita?_

Slowly, slowly, _slowly_ - Rita drags herself on her knees and her elbows. _Don't make a sound or you'll get eaten_.

She's on her hands and knees when she reaches an opening between bushes, ready to spring forward if the coast is clear.

Something big brushes over the top of her head and Rita freezes. Go away. Go away go away go away _go away goawaygoaway-_

It turns its head towards her. What little light there is gleams in its eyes and against its large horns. Very, _very_ large horns.

They pause for what seems like an eternity until the beast growls and tries to flick her away with its horns. It misses Rita by a hair; she falls on her butt and screams as she tries to scramble away, but not before sending a ball of fire hurtling towards its face.

The monster gives a loud roar and shakes out the weak puff of fire. Rita looks back behind her just as it breaks through the bushes and begins to chase after her. She nearly trips when its silhouette becomes three times as tall and ten times as wide.

"Someone…" she pants, her voice barely audible. "Anyone… help! _Please!_" She cries out in pain when the end of one horn slashes against her shoulder. Something warm and sticky seeps through the back of her coat. _Blood. I'm bleeding…_

_Am I going to die?_

Something tackles her from the side and Rita cries out again as she lands on her arm. One hand flies out to send out another ball of fire, larger than the last one. It knocks the smaller monster off and lights up a patch of grass. She gets up, too full of adrenaline to let the pain stop her, but tears are streaming down her face. She sends fireball after fireball at each monster, some of them missing their mark by a couple of feet. The trees are burning when she runs again.

_Running, running, running… How much longer until you're dead?_

The beast is getting closer and closer when Rita trips. She closes her eyes and braces for impact (and death) when something grabs her this time. Rita struggles and nearly puts a fiery hand to the face of this monster when-

"_Stop that_." A voice commands her. She freezes, feeling the cold metal and cloth for the first time.

"Y-you're…" She whispers. "H-human. You're human…"

"Yes," the man replies almost reluctantly. "... I'm human." Rita looks past his shoulder to see the monster sprouting new arrows in its body, unphased. There's a fire raging behind them - behind her, behind the man, behind the beast with the huge yellow-tipped horns.

It isn't until they're out of trees that they've stopped running. The man puts her down and she sees an army clad in orange - or what looks like an army to her. But behind them...

_Aspio_ is behind them. Just a few more hours of walking and she'll reach Aspio.

"Are you ready, men?" The man shouts over the unwavering crowd. His orange cape flaps in the wind as the chorus of _yes sir! _rings through the air. He turns around and extends his arm. "Ready! Aim!"

In one smooth motion, the men have their bows drawn and their arrows pointed at the blazing forest.

Rita looks at the cold, calculating man, then back to the forest. _Not yet… not yet…_

The giganto monster bursts out of the forest with a cry of rage.

"FIRE!"

A hundred arrows strike the beast at once and it falls down, squealing in agony.

Rita can't take her eyes off the sight of the men charging toward the beast with drawn swords, but the man steps into her view. "I need a medic for the girl. Mages, get ready to put out the flames." He commands. "We'll want to salvage what's left of the monster - hide, fur, horns especially."

What happens next is all a blur of people in orange, the smell of burnt wood, and a stinging in her shoulder. Rita doesn't like the way the goop smells as someone spreads it on her injury, but she finds it's not so strong when it's bandaged up and covered.

The man watches her as she blinks once, twice, and stares longingly toward the city.

_"I'm almost... there..."_ It's barely a whisper before her eyes drift shut.

When she opens her eyes, she finds herself in a hospital bed.

In Aspio.

* * *

><p>AN: Hooray for, what, yearly updates? Okay, that's not really any reason for celebration, but alas.

If any of you remember the idea for this prompt, it came from the Images chapter which, upon re-reading it to make sure I had my facts straight(ish), made me cringe. I do that a lot, you know. Look back at my old chapters and cringe. I might end up replacing another one of my chapters because I'm so... displeased with sections and wish I could smack my past self for trying to rush updates without thinking.

I am a terrible person.

Also, if anyone figured it out, the monster I had in mind here was the giganto monster Brutal.

Here's to hopefully more updates soon!

May 28/14


	19. Seasons

_Even when the seasons pass by, she never forgets._

_x_

It's spring when she gets up early in the morning to brew a cup of coffee or to steep a cup of tea for herself to wake up. She sits down and watches as the world wakes up with the sun - her cup of something warm, something hot in her hands as she breathes in the scent and blows across the liquid to cool it down.

Rita finds that she likes these moments of peace and solitude, finds that she understands why he loved them, too, before he left her - but she banishes him from her thoughts because _it's been long enough, stop moping around like an idiot_, and watches the sun rise and readies herself for a new day.

She never forgets to put on the small, golden wedding band he gave her so long ago, when she had been just a little bit younger and he'd stood with her under the tree of Halure, holding her from behind and both of them seeing the view that overlooked the city in the rays of the sunrise. He'd taken her hand so gently, held it so carefully when he asked with his arms wrapped around her, _Rita, hun, will you marry me?_ and slipped the ring on her finger when she never indicated a negative.

Because he was offering her his life and the world and the beauty of what was in front of their eyes and always, always, _always,_ every day would begin anew like the sunrise each morning and never an end like the sunset each evening, though he promised her she could have that, too, if she wanted.

She declined it, but he wanted so much to give her everything, wanted so much to make her happy. A new beginning, a new life, a new adventure, a new experience...

In the end, he gave her an ending, too.

_x_

In the summer, she wakes up late in the lazy afternoons when the sun shines high in the sky; her room is much too warm and she kicks off her blanket and rolls over. It never works in the end, though, because she sits up and rubs her eyes thirty seconds later, slips her bare feet into her fluffy slippers and heads to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

She starts a new day.

It sits in the corner of her room, polished and well-kept, but Rita ignores it anyway to shuffle slowly through her house, through her things, keeping her mind busy and her hands busy and trying to be busy enough to _forget_ because _it's over, he's gone,_ and the world needs her help to create power grids and batteries to bring life with electricity. It's hard work that requires lots of thinking and experimentation, but in the end Rita never fails to go above and beyond what's asked.

Hours pass until Rita looks up at the clock and notes that this is the time she should leave her house and help with the monster hunts, partially for the safety of the town, partially for the butchers in the shops who clean and gut the corpses and feed the townspeople, partially for the merchants who use and sell the hide, the furs, the horns, claws, talons.

Partially for her to hit something hard because _why, why, why did you go_-_  
><em>

Her magic has long since stopped working - all magic has except for Estelle's - so she tidies her things and stuffs her pack with gels and bandages and anything else she thinks they might need, probably need, definitely need.

She grabs the transform bow he left behind from its place in the corner of her room and slings it across her back. He'd taught her how to use it when her magic had disappeared and she'd been left with no means of defense or attack, taught her how to use it when enemies came too close and she'd need to use it as a sword, taught her how to move, how to string, how to shoot, how to miss him when he was gone-

She steps outside her house and locks the door shut.

_x_

In autumn, Rita works harder than spring or summer because winter comes quick and chilling to the bone. She wakes at the time any normal person might - eight to ten o'clock in the morning - but starts her day off slow. She brews hot coffee and drinks it with milk and sugar - because she could never understand how he drank it _black_ - and listens as the world rakes the leaves that litter their yards into piles in a corner.

Rita doesn't understand why they do it because when the wind blows, they scatter all over the place again anyway. She doesn't bother with her own yard. Instead, she works on lights for the longer nights and heaters for the cold chill and helps gather firewood for the elderly and the young and as many people who might need it as she can get to.

His captain's uniform sits in the open closet, reminding her that some of these jobs are jobs for knights and not for regular civilians, even if she did save the world. Rita glares because _this isn't Zaphias_ and _the more help they can get, the better_.

An old voice from the past whispers that he wouldn't have her any other way, but it's been long since that voice was lost in the winds.

_x_

In the winter, everyone gets together at the castle for the winter festivities and to catch up and to remember him as a friend and a hero and someone important that they all miss dearly.

Rita is genuinely happy for the princess and the long-haired swordsman because they're in love and the obstacles around them have long since disappeared. Ioder, as the emperor, lets the Council fret about him to divert their attention away from Estelle and Yuri.

She feels sorry for the guild leader, though. Nan has him whipped and he still follows her around like a lost puppy, but time has changed things - time always changes things; Karol no longer runs from his battles and Nan is softer around him at times, and sometimes Rita laughs with him.

Other times, she still throttles him.

Judith still stands beautiful and calm and Estelle still gets envious of her every now and then, but Rita still turns to glance at the empty seat that was once taken. Judith gives her shoulder a squeeze and Estelle wraps her arms tightly around the former mage.

It's been long enough that Rita has since stopped shedding tears, so she gives Judith one of her small, quiet smiles of understanding and gratitude, and returns Estelle's hug.

When everyone returns home and Rita finds herself staring into her living room with the door shut behind her, she unpacks her few things slowly and listens to the quiet hum of the world around her.

When he was around, he would have dropped their things and lighted the fireplace, and then he would beckon her into his arms, into his lap in front of the fire, and he'd wrap his purple coat around the both of them while she listened to the hum of his mechanical heart. Nothing could interrupt the crackle of the hearth, nor the quiet, comfortable breathing, nor the sounds of soft voices speaking like liquid, golden honey.

They would fall asleep together like that and in the morning, when the fire was dead and the floors were cold, he would wake first and carry her to the bed so she could wake up warm and comfortable - if she didn't wake up in his arms, first - and he would make them both coffee (or tea or hot chocolate, whichever he felt like she would want) while the snow fell gently.

Once the coffee was ready and poured into mugs - one black, one with milk and sugar - Rita would appear and he'd kiss her forehead and say _good morning_, and she would brush her head against his shoulder in an affectionate gesture.

But none of that happens anymore because he's gone, and sometimes Rita almost forgets.

On the eve of the new year, Rita lights the fireplace. She brews her coffee (or hot chocolate or tea, whichever one she thinks he would have made) and, while waiting, grabs his long, purple coat and opens up the precious box with the gilded corners.

When the coffee is ready, Rita pours it in the mug and drinks it black, sitting in front of the crackling fire with the coat wrapped around her tightly.

She holds the red blastia core that once was his heart close to her own and stays up all night, embracing the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year.

She sits and she remembers, and she lives through the seasons.

* * *

><p>AN: Can you believe what google docs just told me? "Last edit was on March 21, 2012." TWENTY FRICKIN TWELVE.

1) I just saved myself a couple days of planning/writing/editing.

2) Wow I need to hurry up and finish this whole thing.

The next chapter will probably be a bit different than normal, but I'll leave the speculation up to you until I update. :)

Jun 9/14


	20. Thread

_They said the red thread of destiny was a myth._

_x_

Sometimes, Estelle likes to sit down and watch people. It's been a habit of hers ever since she was a young girl - a young _princess_. One who often had to sit in long, boring, drawn-out meetings with a bunch of… well, _old fogeys_, in Rita's words.

_It is necessary that you attend this meeting, your highness._

_The council requests your presence, your highness._

_Yes, you must be there, princess._

_No, you cannot stay in bed all day, your highness._

_We cannot hold this meeting without you, princess._

Of course, not a single one of them ever _really_ needed her there. They talked about her like she wasn't in the room, made decisions for her without asking her, assumed she wanted _this_ but not _that_, _that _but not _this_. So she sat in her seat and, because no one paid attention to her, watched the men as they talked.

Lord Ermont had a tendency to furrow his brow when he wasn't paying attention. Magister Noland liked to tug on the thin wisp of a "mustache" on his upper lip when he came up with schemes to try and benefit himself. Captain Ardheim would tap his upper arm three times when he was losing hit patience.

So on and so forth.

It was tedious and it got them nowhere, and Estelle hated it with all her heart because it was just so _useless _and _boring_.

Sometimes, though, Estelle likes to look back at it fondly. If she hadn't at least learned _some_ things about reading body language, she wouldn't have found something special. Something... unique.

Something like a red thread tied to little fingers.

She remembers being thirteen and asking, "Lord Tyrin, why is there a red string tied on your finger?"

They had all looked at her when the man showed his empty hands. The princess had blinked at the bare finger, then stared into her lap. "I-I'm sorry, it must have been my imagination."

But once she started concentrating on herself, there was a red string tied on _her_ finger. She looked at it carefully as if moving would scare it away, but as her thoughts drifted to reasons why, she noticed it began to fade.

What was it?

She kept her mouth shut and watched the men's hands. Faintly, she could see the strings on their fingers if she concentrated hard enough. Lord Ermont's seemed to connect to… one of the servant's hands at the end of the room?

An idea slipped into her mind - an old myth she'd read about a boy throwing a rock at a girl as a child, only to discover they were "fated lovers" in an arranged marriage later in life.

But… wasn't Lord Ermont's wife in the courtyard?

The princess had almost smiled bitterly to herself after a second. What a thought to have when here she was, surrounded by stiff old men trying to decide who they could marry her off to.

Trying to decide how much their prized cattle was worth, and who was wealthy enough to pay the price.

Ridiculous.

Internally, however, she had wished the two of them luck - even if she _was_ just imagining things, even if the man's wife might have been hurt (or not, she didn't know; they never seemed to enjoy the other's company anyway), the idea of being in a loveless marriage was a mockery in her eyes.

Estelle remembers the time she looked at Karol's thread when they'd met Nan for the first time. He was connected to young girl, but halfway between them his straight line turned into her zigzag of spikes.

She remembers looking at her own thread one day and blushing in embarrassment when it came too close to a certain swordsman whose name rhymed with _Zuri Mowell_. She had looked away, of course, because she was too embarrassed to wish and, admittedly, too scared to have her heart broken again.

(The first time she tried to get a glimpse of her link had been with Flynn, and she broke her sixteen-year-old heart when the red, imaginary line missed his own completely and went straight through his forehead.)

She remembers how, if she hadn't looked away, she would have missed the coils around Raven's neck.

It had surprised her enough that she had blinked it away, then worried her enough that she focused on it again.

It was long and winding, curving up from his finger and twisting around his neck as if to suffocate him. It curved around his arm, stretching into the air…

… and joining the spiky, tangled mess that was Rita's. Or at least looked like it did. It had been such a mess, who knew if they were really connected?

But Estelle had been surprised, to say the least. Rita had never shown even an _inkling_ of romantic interest in the archer, and Raven's affections were always directed towards Judith (and other… _bouncy_ women). She did suppose, though, that perhaps they just… needed time?

Her teenaged crush on Flynn hadn't lasted long, after all, and her only other experience with love (other than with a certain long-haired swordsman, but that was for the present, not the _in-between_) was a bunch of ink on paper. Stories filled with ridiculously helpless women and strong men and brave acts of heroism that, once performed, would supposedly capture the hearts of said women instantly.

Stories that didn't even come close to describing what love _really_ felt like, like how seeing him made your stomach fill with butterflies, even after so many months of travelling and working together. It didn't tell you how you wanted to hear his life story, how you wanted to tell _your_ life story, how you wanted to hold him in your arms, how when you accidentally fell asleep on him, his smell would linger on your clothes and you would spend the rest of your day smelling the sleeve of your dress (secretly) because he just smelled _so gosh darned good_.

Did Rita ever feel like that around Raven, she wondered?

Estelle remembers seeing Raven at Baction, dressed up in a captain's uniform and going by the name of Schwann Oltorain. She remembers the suffocating coils of red around his neck, spiralling around and around, tightening and tightening and extending into a huge tangled mess behind him before it reached for the other tangles, the loops and zigzags that stretched to the girl she knew stood behind her, and not the tall beauty beside her.

She remembers seeing them back in the Zaphias castle, recovering from their injuries. She'd spotted Rita at the time, working on his blastia with the thread on her finger just a little bit less tangled, a little bit less of a mess.

Raven wore his like a loose scarf.

Each knot of hers untangled each day. Each coil of his unwound each day.

She'd had a moment with the both of them - separately - where she told them she knew, and watched how they reacted.

Rita had, of course, denied it. Denied, denied, _denied_. Refused to acknowledge the possibility. Turned her tomato of a head away and hissed awkwardly that they were _not_ having this conversation, she did _not_ want to talk about that lech of an archer, it wasn't even like he'd be interested in _her_, anyway.

Raven was the strange one, though. He'd smiled forlornly at her like an old sage who'd seen too much of the world and said _I'm an old man, sweetheart. She's young. Things don't work out like that._

His response had absolutely baffled her. There she was, Princess Estellise Sidos Heurassein, with old (and possibly senile) councilmen throwing noblemen twice, thrice her age at her ever since she's been twelve. And there _he_ was, Raven of Altosk, of Brave Vesperia, Schwann Oltorain, Captain of the Imperial Knights. A man amongst nobility who had _undoubtedly_ attended meetings where fathers married off their just-flowered daughters to men in their forties.

She thinks of how wrong he was that day.

Twelve months ago, the world had been saved. Raven had collapsed, a dull light glowing from his chest, sparking against metal embedded in his chest. Rita had hunched over his form, hands steady as she opened his blastia grid and typed in formulas, _clack clack clacking_ away while the others watched, breaths held.

_Clack clack clack_. _Tap tap tap tap_. _Tick tap clack._

Each _clack_ of Rita's fingers unwound the red string around her pinky from the remains of the tangled mess. Each _tap_ straightened it out, shortened the thread, brought her closer to the dead, _dead man_-

Until a final finger pressed a glowing button and the man on the ground sputtered and coughed, gasping for breath as he regained consciousness.

They'd all kept quiet when the mage's exhausted panting eventually turned into sniffing, then to sobbing as she buried her head in the poor bastard's shirt. Even when he put a hand on her head and whispered to her, she kept her grip on him.

_Hey, hey, it's alright. I'm alive, now, hun. I'm alive, and it's thanks to you. You did well. I'm okay. You're okay. We're all okay._

Six months ago, the world was adapting to a life without blastia. Rita was getting used to the constant in her life that was Raven (because she "needed to monitor his heart twenty-four seven" before the conversion was finished), and Raven was getting used to the fireball that demanded he unbutton his shirt every now and then.

Two months ago, Rita was mad at him, and Raven was distant with her.

One month ago, they still weren't speaking to each other.

Three loose knots are lying on the floor. Two coils sit on his shoulders.

One pair of lips is connected to another.

In the castle, Estelle is unable to take her eyes off the scene from behind the doorway until someone claps a hand on her shoulder and scares her half to death.

As it turns out, she's ready to die right then and there when a red thread connects the hand on her shoulder to her hand clutched to her chest, and in her ear Yuri Lowell softly murmurs _who are you spying on?_

* * *

><p>Dec 1914


	21. United

_They say that when the stars align, lost souls are brought back and united._

_x_

Rita doesn't like rainy days.

Those are the days when the world is cold outside, the ground is wet, and the cars drive by with the intentions of splashing all pedestrians with one part mud, two parts water. Days when the thunderous pounding of rain on the roof keeps her awake at night and the rest of the world is eerily silent.

_days when there's something, someone, something missing?_

Idly she taps at her smartphone in a cozy booth at the cafe they often go to, near the university they study at. _They_ being Estelle and Rita, because Yuri works odd jobs ("You know I was never book-smart anyway."), Karol is only starting high school, and Judith explores the world (funded by her game-winning poker face and cunning mind, _"since he's not here anymore and I can't travel freely like I used to."_), and _university_ being the University of Zaphias (or UZaph, for short, not that it's of any interest, really), which apparently used to be a castle… or something. Rita doesn't really know (or care, actually).

She sips at her peppermint mocha latte, waiting for the pink-haired girl to finish her final exam of the first semester on this god-forsaken _crap day_.

In all honesty though, she doesn't know whether the rain today is a blessing or a curse. It could be a blessing because last night it woke her when she had that stupid fucking dream again about a man with tan skin and teal eyes dying in her arms, but it would be a curse because there's a hole in one of her boots, meaning that one sock was wet and squelched underneath her foot every other step she took. Step. _Squish_. Step. _Squetch_. Step. _Squelch_.

_Memories of the past life_, Judith calls them. Her dreams, obviously, not her stupid wet sock. Rita doesn't listen to her of course, because who _believes_ in past lives and reincarnation and crap these days, anyway? Especially when her dreams seem to include magic and monsters and a giant octopus-shaped _thing_ threatening to destroy a world that looked like Earth, but wasn't _called_ Earth.

_Maybe something happened that erased history_? Yes, okay, thank you, Judith. Something that erased monsters from existence and destroyed the knowledge of magic that was never documented at all. That only makes sense, of course.

But Judith only ever gives her an enigmatic smile before she changes the topic and the dreams are forgotten.

_don't forget. don't forget. i won't forget._

_... forget what?_

"Sorry I'm late!" Someone says breathlessly at her table. Rita looks up at Estelle as she slides into the opposite end of the booth, followed by a long-haired (_swordsman?_) bartender (for now). "My exam took me longer than expected, and I'm pretty sure I just about _failed_ that multiple choice section-"

"Hey now, I'm sure you did _fine_," Yuri tries to console her. He slings an arm around her and rubs her shoulder, but she ignores him.

"And the long-answer questions were just so-!"

"Estelle," Rita cuts her off. "We all know you did fine. Stop worrying. You studied hard enough for us to know you aced that test." She licks the foam off the top of her lip. "And you're not late. I haven't been here very long anyway."

Estelle can only sigh and rest her head on her arms while Yuri orders her a caramel macchiato and gets himself a strawberry frappuccino, even though it's cold and wet outside (but Yuri doesn't care because he wants his cold, sweet fix).

They sit and chat until their cups are empty. Estelle gets up to throw the trash away, and once she's out of earshot, Yuri begs Rita for help in whispers.

"I really can't figure out what to get her for Christmas. What do you think she wants? I mean I thought I could get her a necklace or something but I don't know what she likes when it comes to that kind of crap."

"I don't know, you're the one dating her, not me," she says tiredly with her cheek in her palm. Oh yes, thank you, Rita. You're a _big_ help. "I'm just getting her books this year. She'll like whatever you get her, anyway."

Yuri only groans in response taps away at his phone, no doubt texting Judith to ask for ideas. He nearly drops it when Estelle returns to drag Rita with her to the washroom, because Estelle's a girl and Rita's a girl, and girls _always_ go to the washroom together (for some reason).

What Yuri doesn't know is that when the door shuts, Estelle pulls the same stunt he tried on the brunette.

"Do you think it's okay for me to get him jewelry? I mean since he's a guy, although I suppose lots of guys do wear jewelry these days anyway. Would a bracelet be okay? I saw something in this store the other day. I was thinking of something personalized with his name on it - last name, really, because that seems like a better idea, but then I don't think…"

"Estelle," Rita wipes her hands off with paper towels because they're more efficient than hand driers. Less noisy, too. "Whatever you get him will be fine, I swear. He's your boyfriend, for crap's sake. You know him better than I do."

By the time they return to their booth, Yuri has perked up and Estelle has stopped fidgeting. Rita only mutters to herself because honestly, she's just tired and a little bit grumpy (okay, maybe always grumpy), and she wants to go home to take a nice long nap.

_wants to go out and search for something something _someone_ something._

Rita stumbles in her step when they leave the cafe, not because of her stupid, still-wet sock going _slch slch slch_ in her boot, but because she passes by a man with tan skin and teal eyes who reminds her all too much of magic and broken hearts.

But a stranger is a stranger. A nameless face. A faceless name.

Easy to forget.

She dreams of love that night. Dreams of spending quiet nights with a thirty-odd year old man before the fireplace of inns all across the world, sitting and breathing with a heartbeat and a whir.

She's young in these strange dreams - younger than her current nineteen years of life - living in a world without cars or computers or even basic electricity.

(At least until she invents it, of course, but that's long passed the scene where death kisses her lover in her arms.)

She dreams of love that night.

She dreams of love that night.

She dreams of loss that night.

_x_

Rita watches Raven carefully before she focuses on synchronizing Estelle with the others. She knows all too well that today, success might not be without loss… but he's willing to put his life on the line, as are the rest of them, and she has no choice but to follow through.

There's light gathering around them from all over the world - Rita realizes these are _spirits_ coming out of _blastia_ (minor sprites, really, unlike Undine and the others, but spirits nonetheless) and she wants to be surprised but there's simply no _time_ for that now.

The world is a blur around them. The energy creates a haze like yellow-tinged fog in the air and Raven's breath is shallow, but he's standing and he's alive, and if they fail now the world is going is going to fall so Rita keeps her eyes forward and her stance strong.

She's scared because she's spent her entire life studying blastia, and soon - in just mere minutes - her life's research is going to go straight down the drain and she'll be so fucking _useless_ again.

She doesn't want any of that at all, but really there's nothing else she can do if she wants to _live_.

The sky bursts into what looks like an array of multi-coloured shooting stars and fireworks. Duke is standing next to Yuri, facing the bright-coloured _beings_.

_These are spirits too_, her mind echoes. "All the Entelexeia who became the Adephagos…" Rita murmurs in wonder. Next to her, Karol keeps his eyes on the sky. "They all transformed into these spirits."

They gaze at the world for a few moments longer before someone collapses on his knee.

_Fuck_, Rita panics as she hurries to Raven's side. His clammy hand is clutching his shirt over his heart, and Rita easily pries that away to pull up his formula. Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

She doesn't realize she's saying the words out loud until Raven chuckles breathlessly in her ear. "All that time you spent waitressin' in the Sagittarius rubbed off on ya, sweet cheeks. You've got quite the potty mouth," he wipes a speck of dirt off her face with shaking hands and a wince. She knows there's a twinge in his chest, can _hear_ the sputtering of his mechanical heart - _sees the defeat in his eyes_. "You know, Rita…"

"_Shut up_," Rita hisses, fingers clacking nervously over the glowing keyboard. "Shut up, shut up, _shut up_. Don't say it. You're going to be fine, Raven. Don't say a _word_." There's a watery sheen in her eyes, but the man smiles when _Raven_ replaces _old man_.

Sixty seconds pass, and he can see the faltering in her eyes.

"Please," It's barely audible - not even a whisper. Rita grinds her teeth and her fingers clack faster against the flickering windows. "Please _work_. Please, please, _please, don't fucking go_-"

The glowing frames shatter into pieces, the keyboard a mess of fading luminescent shards.

Raven falls forward into her arms, head cradled in her neck.

"Raven…?" With a groan, he lets her jostle him around as she moves to support his head and stroke his cheek. He blinks sleepily at her and smiles.

"It's okay, Rita." The tears are falling down her cheeks now, dripping onto his coat. "Man, I'm the worst, makin' ya cry like this." A deep rumble of amusement in his chest turns into coughs. "Look... I've been up for a while now, you know? I'm just… gonna take a short nap, okay?"

"No, no, no, no," Rita is mumbling to him. "Y-you have to stay with us, w-with _me_, okay? S-so don't you _dare_ go to fucking sleep on me, Raven. _Please._" And Raven just brings a weak hand to her cheek and wipes away the tears, even though it's useless since they won't stop. (She's not sure if they'll ever stop.)

"Live for me, Rita," it's a whisper no one can hear but her. "Help this world... because they're going to need you."

Rita can only nod and swallow the lump in her throat.

"In another life, in another time..." he coughs weakly into his sleeve, "I'll come find you, okay? If ya don't mind waiting for an old fogey like me." He tries to grin, but it comes out a grimace instead.

Rita _knows_ he knows she doesn't believe in life after death, but she gives him this.

"I'll wait for you. Okay? So come find me... A-and if you take too long, I'll come looking for you instead, b-because you know I don't have the patience to sit around and do n-nothing, right, old man?"

He chuckles. "... Right."

She tries to open her mouth, but he cuts her off first.

"I love you, ya know." he whispers warmly. He grasps the hand stroking his cheek and nuzzles into her palm. "My sun, my moon, my stars, my world..." she laughs chokingly, pathetically, brokenly at his stupid, idiotic, beautiful words, "my life... my love... my everything..."

She kisses the broken man in her arms and whispers, "_I love you, too, Raven._"

He smiles and lets his eyes shut the world out. For once he thinks he's truly, honestly, undoubtedly the happiest man alive, before he slips away.

_x_

She's not quite sure why she's here in front of the odd store, only that there's a bright gold choker-type necklace with a red gem in its center that catches her eye through the window and lures her in.

The store is filled with unique things, she finds. _Ancient relics_, the signs say, but why would they be for sale if they should be in a museum instead? Although some of the jewellery looks like the stuff passed down in Estelle's family, now that she thinks about it, and most of them seem to have little gems on them. Single gems for each piece, really, and yes, they're bright and shiny, but there's a certain… lackluster in them. Something missing to make them feel… alive?

Except rocks can't be alive.

_victoria… ekaterine… maria..._

She used to study them, actually, before she changed her major. Mineralogy, she'd been interested in - finding these gems and figuring out how they could be used to increase conductivity, looking for ways to make them useful to the world while admiring their shine… but there was always _something_ missing, something _empty_... so she turned to electrical engineering instead.

Of course, with her brain and her work ethics, scholarships definitely made it easy to go through school without worrying about tuition.

She isn't sure what she's looking for as she glances over each item. _Replicas_, she realizes is on the signs, written in smaller letters above the main phrase. _Replicas of ancient relics_.

A hand lands on her shoulder and Rita turns her head to glare at the offending limb - and person. A raven-haired man gives her a supposedly charming smile, but there's a gleam in his eyes that tell her he's a _hunter_.

In the light, his hair gives off a blue tinge.

"What can I help you with today, _fräulein_?"

His accent is strong, Rita discovers. German, with a flamboyant lilt.

"I-I'm fine, thanks," she brushes him off, shrinking away from his hand. Human contact isn't her forte, after all, but there really is something predatory about him. She's sure of it.

_... "friendship does not last an eternity-"_

He flicks a lock of hair back, but it only falls down to frame his face again. "Well, perhaps something must have caught your eye, _ja_?"

"No, I was just looking around," she turns and freezes when something catches her eye. His eyes follow her gaze and he smiles.

"Ah, are you interested in this?" He taps the brooch pinned to the lapel of his jacket. "I have quite a few in my collection, you know," he chuckles.

Rita can only stare at it - a red gem coiled by metal tendrils. From anyone else's perspective, it's beautiful - elegantly designed. Except she's not anyone else.

It's a simple adornment, but Rita remembers how the the _real_ orb fit in her palm, how the entire system was as long as her forearm and as wide as her hand splayed out.

"_Yeager_," she mutters before she can stop herself.

The man grins and claps his hands together. "Splendid! Oh, very splendid, _ja_? You know my name! How exciting!"

_he's real?_

Real. Just like Estelle, when they first met in highschool; like Judith, when she waltzed into the cafe and sat next to them like they were old friends; like Yuri and Karol, when she knew all of their hazy faces but none of their names.

(Only it's different this time because his name is _Yeager_ and they've never met before, but someone like Estelle was just _that girl_ all those years back in high school.)

Wary at first, Rita learns that this man is not the enemy she dreams about. He has a family in this world - in this _life_. Two adopted daughters. A wife named Casey.

She's still skeptical, but she wonders if she's starting to believe that Judith and this man are telling the truth when they say reincarnation is a _thing_.

"Let me give you a little token, _meine freundin_." He places something in her palm and closes her fingers over it. "You never know when such a thing might be useful, _ja_?"

The trip home is a blur in Rita's memories, and she finds herself collapsing on her bed as her pillow swallows her groan.

She peeks at the brooch in her hands and considers shoving it in a box under her bed.

Instead, she tucks her hand by her chest, fingers remembering smooth metal and a palm-sized core.

_glowing panels have shattered, broken shards don't mend, dead men don't wake up._

_x_

She keeps the little red gemstone, surrounded by its golden tendrils and fastened to a pin, hidden away in the zipped up pocket of her jacket. It's been months since Yeager gave it to her, and Rita still doesn't know why she hasn't stashed it away somewhere.

It's not like she hates it of course. If anything, it's sort of a new _constant_ in her life. Pushing her forward. Driving her ideas. Feeding her urge to search for something.

_someone, somewhere, there's somebody out there._

But what has she been trying to find?

Her final exam for the semester lies in front of her, complete except for one question with its answers at the tips of her fingers. She pulls at her hair and chews on her lip and picks at her already-short fingernails, but the clock on the wall ticks away like there's no tomorrow. The room is filled with other students in worse shape than she is - their frustration is evident, and Rita just wants to get out of this suffocating place.

The skies are clear tonight. Rita remembers that Estelle wants to go stargazing with the others because tonight is supposedly special. Something about stars lining up? Rita doesn't know.

_come find me_. _i'll come look for you._

Her fingers brush over the smooth stone in her pocket. Was there a formula for this question? She wants to get it all over with so she can set the telescope up before Karol gets impatient and ends up breaking it. Again.

Something moves in the corner of her eye - there's a man who walks by the window outside.

What is the equation?

There's a man who walks by the window outside.

How can she fix the telescope if Karol gets his hands on it again? She's the only one who knows how to fix-

She pricks her finger on the needle of the pin.

_- how to fix his blast-_

There's a man who walks past the window outside.

_she broke it._

There's a man-

_she let him die._

His eyes are teal-

_what was the formula?_

His skin is tan-

She needs to solve this. Needs to get out. Answer this last question, grab her stuff, go home. _Find him_. Find who?

His hair is a dark brown-

_ten minutes left._

Rita is barely able to focus. There's someone out there she's barely glimpsed at, but she can't get him out of her head because he's _dead_, _dead, dead_-

_who's dead?_

Her writing is a bunch of just-barely-legible chicken scratch as she solves the problem. She doesn't even bother checking her other answers before she hands it in and practically runs outside.

There was a man who walked by the window outside… but he's nowhere in sight.

There's a dull ache in her chest - from what, she doesn't know, but she's breathless and panting and, for some reason, she feels ready to cry.

She puts her hand in her pocket to feel the brooch-

_it's gone. the stone is gone. the metal is gone. the blastia are gone. his blastia is broken._

_blastia?_

"Excuse me, ah, miss? I think you dropped something-"

The girl freezes in place when a man's voice, deep and timbre, calls through the air. She hears the intake of breath - whether it's from him or her, she can't tell - and, when she turns around slowly, he is staring at the brooch in his hand some meters away.

She takes a step forward-

_i couldn't save you._

- and another-

_why did you have to go?_

- and another -

_i love you._

- and she wants to run, she really does-

_please._

- but her nerves are a jumbled mess and all she can do is freeze and stare at this twenty-odd (thirty-five?) year-old stranger.

When he looks up, it's as if he sees her for the first time. Looks at her like she's something precious, someone irreplaceable, something _miraculous_.

_Come find me. I'll look for you._

Slowly, tentatively, he walks towards her, and Rita wonders if he can hear how wildly her loud heart is beating with each step he takes. When he offers the brooch to her, she takes the miniature blastia from his hands and carefully, _carefully_ pins it to his jacket, right over his heart.

He takes her hand in his and holds it to his - one hundred percent human - chest.

"I found you," he whispers with a smile and strokes her cheek. "I told you I would find you, Rita."

She laughs weakly and lets the tears fall. "Maybe you found me, Raven." She stands on her toes and whispers as his head dips down to meet her halfway. "Or maybe _I_ found _you_."

* * *

><p>AN: Inspired by the reincarnation theme in the Shingeki no Kyojin fandom, I thought I'd try a little something here. Toyed with the idea of an immortal!Judith because she knows the full history of what happened between then and now (even _I_ don't know what happened...), but I know it reads more like she just remembers rather than lived through it and that's okay too. I think my writing got pretty abstract near the end there, but oh well.

_Fräulein _is apparently an outdated term for "miss," which I figured might be a little quirk Yeager would be inclined to use given he remembers his past life and all. _Meine freundin_ is "my friend" in feminine form; google tells me that it could also mean "girlfriend" or something but I don't know crap about German, man, so I'm just going with my silly foreigner's tongue.

Feb 03/15


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